Situation of food sanitation in the area around Naresuan University Phitsanulok Province Thailand

Abstract

This cross sectional study was conducted in order to evaluate the situation of food sanitation in Thai street food stalls in the area around Naresuan University in Phitsanulok Province Thailand. A sample consist¬ing of 88 food stalls was collected and evaluated using an assessment checklist and by gathering data on contamination using coliform bacteria test kits (SI-2) on food samples, kitchen utensils and food handlers. A set of data to analysis was conducted using descriptive statistic frequencies and percentages. Results showed that there was only 1 food stall that passed the physical standard evaluated by the questionnaire assessment focusing on 3 top criteria. The first criteria, entitled item No 12 which states that cooks should be wearing clean clothes, shirts with sleeves, clean aprons and a hat or hair net. The second criteria, item No 10, states that food stalls should have good sanitary waste and water disposal. And The third criteria, item No 8, states that knife, cutting board should be separated between cook meat, raw meat and raw vegetables. There were 4 food stalls that passed biological standard as follow, one-dish-meal food stall, one rice-and-curry food stall and 2 cook-as-ordered food stalls. The contaminated samples were mostly found on food handlers (54.0%), kitchen utensils (49.0%) and in food samples (15.9%). The most common kitchen utensil where coliform bacteria was found are bowls (67.4%) and the most common food type where coliform bacteria was found was in the cultural food of the Northeast (25.0%). This study shows that food sanitation is important to make sure that food is free from disease and demonstrates that improvements should be focused in the future.