Investigating Hotels' Compliance With Food Hygiene Regulations Within Bauchi Metropolis, Bauchi State Nigeria
Abstract
Food is what contains the nutrients which are essential for body nourishment. The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as 'when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. The hotel is one place where people are served food at a cost. This implies that the hotel has a stake in ensuring food security for all people. Hotels world over are guided by Regulations and Codes of Ethics in their operations. One of such regulations is the Food Safety Act ( FSA) of 1996 which spells out what hotels must do to ensure that foods sold to the public are safe in addition to being nutritious. Recurring reports of hotels food safety infractions spurred the need to carry out this investigation in order to determine their level of compliance to hygiene regulations in Bauchi metropolis. The study was limited to the Urban and Sub-Urban classified hotels. The diagnostic survey design was adopted and a census population was used for a reliable result. Structured questionnaires were used to elicit information from three respondents drawn from the regulatory agencies responsible for the enforcement of relevant laws on hotels. Observation checklist was also used to assess the sanitary conditions of hotels premises. The one-way ANOVA was used to test for differences among the means and to analyze the total compliance scores of the eight hotels used for the study as regards all the 24 conditions of hygiene and sanitation outlined in the FSA that the regulatory agencies had scored them. This was based on a Likert scale with 5 points (5-Very Good, 4-Good, 3-Average, 2-Poor, and 1-Very Poor). A score between 24 and 56 implied Low Compliance, a score between 57 and 89 implied average compliance while a score between 90 and 120 implied high compliance. The significant test for the hypothesis was at 95% confidence level (p< 0.05). The study finding was that the level of compliance with hygiene and sanitation regulations was below the average scores of between 57 and 89. The study recommended among others, a mandatory course on food hygiene and sanitation for prospective hotel entrepreneurs as a prerequisite for obtaining license for all food businesses in Bauchi.
Keywords: Food, Food safety, Compliance, Hotel.