Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the sanitation management status and implementation barriers of the HACCP system. A survey was conducted based on 760 schools through e-mail after having gone through phone interviews to dieticians in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Incheon areas from December 2006 to March 2007. The following statistics were drawn out from the 459 surveys out of the 760, thus giving a response rate of 60.4% (N = 459). The statistical data analysis was completed using the SPSS program. 92.6% of the respondents operated sanitary education once a month and 67.1% used internet as their sanitary educational source. 50.5% of the pre-preparation rooms were not divided and 78.0% of kitchen floors were always kept wet. Only 15.7% of the respondents used heat and cold insulators and 73.2% of drinking water was natural or purified water. 60.3% of food trays were electronically sterilized and 70.2% of spoons and chopsticks were sterilized by boiling water. The main cause of food-borne diseases was the lack of facilities and equipment (33.1%). Also, the deficiency of facilities and equipment (4.07 points) acted as an implementation barrier of the HACCP system. Compared to Gyeonggi or Incheon area results, Seoul's facilities and equipment (p < 0.001) and implementing barriers of the HACCP system (p < 0.001) results came out relatively high. After the analysis of the implementation barriers of the HACCP system, 91.7% of school principals said it was difficult to apply the HACCP system due to lack of financial support. In consideration to the school foodservice support, solutions for the facilities of school foodservice and a systematic sanitary education of the HACCP system must be made for the employees and everyone else who are related.

• Keywords: school foodservice; sanitary education; sterilization of facilities and equipments; barriers to implementing a HACCP system