Food safety practices and knowledge among Turkish dairy businesses in different capacities

The Turkish dairy industry has recently implemented HACCP-based food safety management systems according to a new Turkish law. Law 5996, instituted in 2010, establishes food-handling standards for the dairy industry and requires on-farm and plant production HACCP-compliance, to guarantee food safety. The implementation of this law and current food safety standards in Turkish dairy plants were assessed in this study. Researchers developed a survey to characterize overall food safety among dairy businesses in Aydın, Turkey. The survey included a questionnaire, interviews with management and audits of dairy businesses that had production licenses from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock in 2010. Dairy businesses’ current food safety practices, staff comprehension of basic hygiene and food safety, and plant standards regarding food safety training were all evaluated. Findings were differentiated based on plant size. Our study found that the majority of food safety problems occurred at the time of raw milk being received, despite 71.4% of dairy businesses implementing supplier safety criteria. However, based on field observations, dairy businesses had limited supplier safety criteria, the processing plants had very poor hygiene practices and HACCP compliance was inadequate among plants. Most of the dairy businesses limited food safety training to permanent workers and did not extend this training to management, technical staff or temporary workers. Management identified several impediments to further food safety training but the majority, also, communicated interest in further food safety training. Generally, larger dairy plants had better compliance with current Turkish food safety codes. Our data, along with the literature in this area, suggests that further governmental programming that trains management in food safety is needed. This training should employ alternative educational strategies and specifically target smaller and medium-sized dairy plant managers. Such programming or grants would advance food safety among Turkish dairy businesses.