Hygiene conditions of the self-service restaurants by evaluating the microbial quality of the mixed-food preparations

ABSTRACT

Hygiene conditions of the self-service restaurants located at the central region of Maringá city, Paraná, were evaluated by surveying the microbiological quality of the food provided for customers. Thirty-four mixed-food preparations samples were collected from the self-service counters of 18 restaurants, which serve 100 or more meals/day. In order to evaluate on the Good Practices procedures observance, a checklist was administered to five restaurants, just to those considered critical and presenting microbiological standards above the limits allowed by the Resolution No 12/2001-Brazilian Ministry of Health. One of the eighteen investigated restaurants received training on Good Practices procedures, which was evaluated by means of the checklist before and nine months after training. The microbiological analyses showed eight food samples contaminated with coliforms at 45°C, and one sample with coagulase-positive staphylococci. No contamination by Salmonellas sp. was found in all of the analyzed samples. Based on the number of non-conformities found in the checklist items those considered as crucial for safe food preparation, all of five restaurants were classified as critical. One restaurant, which was trained on the Good Practices procedure, received non-conformity ranking of 60.9% and 50.9% before and after the training, respectively, and these data indicated that little progress had been made. Education programs implementation both food handlers and consumers is a strategy for reducing the occurrence of food-borne diseases.