Food Safety Management Practices of Small and Medium Sized Food Industry Enterprizes in Tanzania

The study aimed to investigate the food safety practices of HACCP and ISO2200 in food establishments in Tanzania, focused on knowledge (awareness) and management practices of food safety systems. The research randomly surveyed 200 food establishments from three regions in the country; only 113 managers completed the survey. Research conducted face-to-face by questioning knowledge (employees and managers), management practices (ISO 22000, HACCP and prerequisites programs, GMP and SSOP), and demographic information. Employees indicated to have more knowledge on the use of GMP (64.3 %) than HACCP (22.9%) and ISO22000 (15.4%) and training of employees was GMP (73.9 %), ISO22000 (19.2 %) and HACCP (27.1%). This knowledge was also measured by frequency of training results, which indicated inadequacy of twice per year almost 31.4 % for manager, and every 3 months (29.1%) employees. Management practices of food safety systems indicated HACCP practices were inadequately done by only 26.6 % of food establishments by validating quality assurance and monitoring systems. This also included the management pratices of barriers and benefits of food safety systems (ISO 22000 and HACCP). Barriers indicated poor confidence in suppliers to provide appropriate raw material (25.7 %), lack of government support (17.3 %) and the least 4% volume of paperwork. While, benefits indicated 68.6 % benefits as the highest with the lowest (22.7%) increase in product price. The improperbarrier implemenatation resulted into inadequate control of hazards under the HACCP program, only 40 % of the food establishments asserted all food in storage was protected from contamination. Prerequisite programs in food establishments were fairly managed, over 80 % had well-designed draining systems within their food establishments.The least (35.5%) had written sanitation standard operation procedure for cleaning and disinfectants. It is suggested that through job training, class training on food safety, and availability of resources, knowledge as well as management practices could be improved within food establishments. Further studies should focus on customer awareness, food vendors as well as single groups within the food industries