Food hygiene knowledge and awareness among undergraduate maritime students

Background: Reducing the crew size of the galley department on merchant vessels causes heavy workload for the remaining food handlers on board. This situation in return, could trigger risky behaviours and create an unsanitary environment which can facilitate the spread of various gastrointestinal disorders on ships. In such cases, ensuring and supervising food hygiene and food safety on board is up to maritime captains and officers. In addition to that, each crew member on board should maintain a general awareness of food hygiene to prevent any outbreaks. However, these personnel's knowledge and awareness to prevent such risky behaviours and cases are questionable. In this context, this study aims to examine food hygiene knowledge as well as awareness among maritime students. A survey has been conducted to discover the risky behaviours seen on merchant vessels regarding food hygiene. Specified training needs to achieve food safety culture on merchant vessels are discussed