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Background: The value chains of tomatoes in Ethiopia are largely informal which may pose potential food safety risks. Value chains (VCs) mapping was carried out with emphasis on tomatoes in two major cities in eastern Ethiopia—Harar and Dire Dawa—which were assessed to identify practices likely to result in unsafe food, considering production, transportation, retail, preparation, and consumption. Methods: Qualitative methods were used to map the VCs to understand the flows, actors, and practices. Group discussions and key informant interviews were performed to better understand the processes, practices, beliefs, and food safety risks in these VCs. Results: The two cities are supplied by two vegetable VCs: the first and larger being from distant producers in central Ethiopia, and the second from surrounding rural and peri-urban producers. The long-distance VCs involve producers, brokers, transporters, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers. The local producers, however, bring their fresh products directly to the cities without the involvement of VC actors other than final retailers and consumers. The study suggests microbiological contamination risks along tomato VCs, potentially including soil contamination, use of sewerage-contaminated irrigation water, untreated manure, unhygienic handling and storage conditions, and dirty contact surfaces during transportation and retailing. Tomatoes are mostly harvested by hand picking, collected, and sorted on the ground exposing to sunlight and physical bruising with potential contamination. More importantly, tomatoes are widely consumed raw without “a kill-step” that certainly contributes to foodborne infections. Suggestions by study participants for improving food safety and hygiene include funding toward improved infrastructure and facilities in the sectors, supporting VC actors with improved technology for quality production, and increasing awareness of good and hygienic practices. Consumers were particularly concerned about contamination with agrochemicals without much emphasis on the potential microbial contaminants. Fresh tomatoes are prepared in a variety of ways and are often consumed raw or slightly cooked. Further recommendations included using health extension workers to conduct awareness campaigns on improved food safety and hygienic practices. Conclusion: The qualitative VC mapping generated useful information for designing intervention strategies, especially targeting developing food safety interventions and an awareness communication campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the study was to assess the hygienic practices and microbial quality of meat at slaughterhouses and butcher's shops in West Hararghe Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study design was used during April 2019 and August 2019 with a sample size of 52 study participants who worked in a slaughterhouse and/or meat retailing outlets in Chiro and Hirna towns. The data were collected using semi-structured questionnaire followed by laboratory analysis. The safety of meat products was determined by counting Total Viable Bacterial, Total Coliform, Enterobacter, and Staphylococcus spp. The result of this study showed that meat handlers were mostly uneducated working without protective cloths. Slaughtering and post slaughtering process in many premises were unhygienic, which causes a high risk of crosscontamination and is hazardous for public health. Microbial load both in slaughterhouses and butcher's shops were higher than the recommended standards. Overall the mean total bacterial counts, coliform counts, Enterobacter and staphylococcus spp. values were 7.01±0.25 log10CFU/cm2, 6.02±0.29 log10CFU/cm2, 6.950±0.16 log10CFU/cm2 and 6.36±0.2 log10CFU/cm2, respectively. This might be due to crosscontamination through poor personal hygiene, lack of demarcation between dirt and clean met products in the slaughterhouses, evisceration, and dressing on an unhygienic floor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethiopia is believed to have the largest cattle population in Africa. The total annual milk production from cattle has been estimated at 3.5 billion liters from 11.38 million dairy cows. As a result, cow's milk is the focus of milk processing in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, the base of milk processing is fermented milk (Ergo) with no defined starter cultures used to initiate fermentation. The main reasons reported for the use of fermented milk as a base of processing are the small volume of milk produced per day, better shelflife of fermented milk, consumer preference and type of available milk processing materials. The success of dairy development to a large extent depends on market for the product combined with other dairy infrastructure and availability of small-scale processing facilities to manufacture high quality dairy products. In Ethiopia, only 6.6% of the total milk produced in the country is marketed as liquid milk and the remaining 48.8% and 44.6% of produced milk is used for home consumption and processing, respectively. Out of the 44.6% of milk allocated for household processing, 75% and 25% go to butter and Ethiopian cottage cheese production, respectively. Thus, the products could be easily transported to market place, and fetch better prices or returns. The microbiological information on traditional butter is not fully available in Ethiopia. However, the available previous research works conducted in Ethiopia revealed that the microbial count of butter is generally above the acceptable limits set for quality butter. The presence of bacteria in butter reduces the keeping quality of the product and certain bacteria with their associated enzymes and toxins may even survive high temperature and create public health hazards. The potential sources of butter microbial contamination are raw materials, air, water and equipment, which usually occur during processing, packaging and storage of finished product. Therefore, all precautions should be taken to avoid contamination of butter and public health hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food service establishments are the sources of food borne illnesses and the food handlers contribute to food borne illness outbreaks. Purpose of this study was to assess the magnitude of hygienic practices and its associated factors on food handlers working in selected food and drinking establishment found in Mekelle town, northern Ethiopia. A facility based crosssectional study was conducted from January-February 2014 among the 369 food handlers. A simple random sampling method was applied for data collection using a pre-tested structured questionnaire. The data entry, cleaning and analysis were performed using SPSS version 20. Bi-variable and multivariable analysis was carried out to see the association between dependant variables and independent variables. The mean age of food handlers was 22.7±6.36 years. Magnitude of hygienic practices of food handlers were 53.1%. Food handlers have an access to running water inside the kitchen [AOR=2.89, 95%CI: 1.43-5.87] and have cupboard for storing food utensils [AOR=3.81, 95%CI: 1.88-7.73] were strongly associated with good hygienic practices. This study identify variables like access to running water, availability of cupboard in the establishment and an owner and relative being a manager was main predictors. The study recommends food handlers need special attention on food safety training, medical checkup and personal hygiene that can increase food hygienic practices. It also recommends that to commence the small-scale enterprise to work on social market in terms of training centers on food safety.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the potential drivers of microbial meat contamination along the entire meat supply chain is needed to identify targets for interventions to reduce the number of meatborne bacterial outbreaks. We assessed the hygienic practices in cattle slaughterhouses (28 employees) and retail shops (127 employees) through face-to-face interviews and direct personal observations. At the slaughterhouses, stunning, de-hiding and evisceration in vertical position, carcass washing and separate storage of offal were the identified good practices. Lack of hot water baths, absence of a chilling room, infrequent hand washing, insufficiently trained staff and irregular medical check-up were practices that lead to unhygienic handling of carcasses. At the retail shops, cleaning equipment using soap and hot water (81%), storing unsold meat in refrigerators (92%), concrete floors and white painted walls and ceilings were good practices. Adjacently displaying offal and meat (39%), lack of a cold chain, wrapping meat with plastic bags and newspapers, using a plastic or wooden cutting board (57%), infrequent washing of equipment and floors, and inadequately trained employees were practices that could result in unhygienic handling of beef. Our study identified unhygienic practices both at the slaughterhouses and retail shops that can predispose the public to meatborne infections, which could be improved through training and implementation of quality control systems.

A cross-sectional survey was carried out among 91 meat handlers by using structured questionnaire to determine the food safety knowledge, attitude and practices in abattoir and retail meat shops of Jigjiga Town. The result shows that majority of the meat handlers were illiterate (30.8%) and primary school leaver (52.7%), and no one went through any food safety training except one meat inspector. The food-handlers' knowledge and safety practices were below acceptable level with the mean score of 13.12 ± 2.33 and 7.7 ± 2.1 respectively. Only few respondents knew about Staphylococcus aureus (3.3% correct answer), hepatitis A virus (19.8% correct answer), and E. coli (5.5% correct answer) as food borne pathogens. About 64% of meat handlers have good attitude about safety of food with mean of total score 14.4 ± 2. All respondents answer correctly questions about proper meat handling and hand washing but they did not translate into strict food hygiene practices. Chi2 analysis testing for the association between knowledge, attitude and practices did not show any significant association. It may be due to meat handlers' below acceptable level safety practices regardless of sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge and attitude. However, there was strong association between level of education and knowledge, and knowledge and hand washing (p < 0.05). There was also association between age and knowledge though it was not statistically significant. Thus, continuous education and hands on training for meat handlers that can enhance good safety practices through better understanding and positive attitude.