Food Protection Trends - July/August 2018 - 284

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE

H. Lester Schonberger,* Renee R. Boyer
and Melissa W. Chase

Food Protection Trends, Vol 38, No. 4, p. 284-294
Copyright© 2018, International Association for Food Protection
6200 Aurora Ave., Suite 200W, Des Moines, IA 50322-2864

Dept. of Food Science and Technology, Virginia Tech,
Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

Food-handling Behaviors of Student Volunteers
in a University Food Recovery Program
ABSTRACT
Organizations dedicated to hunger relief have grown
in recent years to increase their capacity to reach more
food insecure populations; for example, Feeding America
served 11% more meals in 2016 than in 2015. One
barrier to ensuring food safety during the diversion and
donation of food is lack of effective training for volunteers.
Some programs are affiliated with universities and as such
rely on student volunteers. Students have been shown
to have risky practices in food-handling environments
and can create situations in which food distributed by
hunger-relief organizations can be at risk for unintentional
contamination. Using a food recovery program at a large,
land-grant university, food-handling behaviors of student
volunteers were observed in-person and compared to
self-reported behaviors and self-identified training needs
gathered via a survey. Commonly observed behaviors
were improper handwashing, inconsistent record keeping,
and the use of unclean or contaminated equipment. For
example, during deliveries only 13% of volunteers were
observed washing their hands at least once, while 69%
self-reported doing so. Training volunteers is necessary
in view of the vulnerability to foodborne illness of those

receiving recovered food. Trainings developed specifically
for this audience should include unique handling scenarios
adapted to food handler best practices.

INTRODUCTION
In 2015, approximately 15.6 million households in the
United States were "uncertain of having, or unable to acquire,
enough food to meet the needs of all their members because
they had insufficient money or other resources for food,"
defined as food insecure (35, 36, 37). National and regional
organizations dedicated to hunger relief have increased their
capacity in order to reach more food insecure households
(9, 15, 32). For example, Feeding America has worked
within local networks to distribute 4 billion (B) meals to
46 million Americans during 2016, an increase from 3.6B
in 2015 (13, 14). Approximately 30-40% of the total food
in the U.S. that would otherwise be discarded is available
for reclamation; this food includes gleaned produce from
growers and gardeners as well as food donated by processors,
retailers and restaurants that does not meet quality standards
but is still safe for consumption (18, 38, 39). Many of these
producers are hesitant to donate excess food into hungerrelief organizations because of the liability involved should

*Corresponding Author: Telephone: +1 540.231.2078; Fax: +1 540.231.6618; E- mail: hlschon@vt.edu

284

Food Protection Trends July/August

http://www.foodprotection.org/files/food-protection-trends/jul-aug-18-schonberger.pdf

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - July/August 2018