Hygiene Practices in the Restaurants of Dhaka North City Corporation, Bangladesh

Food safety in food establishments has been considered a global and increasing public health concern in developing countries like Bangladesh. Poor personal and environmental hygiene contributes to food contamination and results in food-borne diseases. This report represents the current hygienic state of middle-scale restaurants of Dhaka North City Corporation in Bangladesh. This study examines the prevailing environment, cleanliness, and hygiene practices of the randomly selected restaurants through on-site visiting. It was a cross-sectional observational study where a total of 134 restaurants were observed by taking the consent of the owner. The data were collected by a structured checklist where variables were categorized as acceptable, moderately acceptable, and unacceptable that denoting whether the restaurants perform all the hygiene practices properly or operate unhygienic activities on daily basis. However, the study revealed that most restaurants did not follow food hygiene practices whereas 12.7 % of restaurants were located beside unhygienic places, and 79.9 % didn’t have toilet facilities. Nevertheless, the practices of food handlers were also very alarming because most of them did not follow proper dress codes while distributing food among customers. Overall, the study explored that only 9% of restaurants conduct healthy practices whereas 46.3% carried out both healthy and unhealthy practices and 44.7% operate mostly unhygienic practices. Therefore, the study findings will assist the policy makers and planners in designing interventions to improve the sanitary conditions of food establishments and aware the consumer as well. Keywords: Food, Hygiene Practices, Restaurants of Dhaka North City Corporation, Bangladesh. DOI: 10.7176/FSQM/119-05 Publication date:September 30th 202