Food Safety Certification and Knowledge

At a glance

We examined the link between food safety certification and food safety knowledge. We also examined the link between knowledge and other things, like restaurant traits and job experience. Learn what we found about the link between food safety certification and food safety knowledge.

Key takeaways

Our research supports the following prevention efforts:

• Encouraging certification of managers and workers
• Applying food safety training programs that adequately address the needs of employees with limited English speaking and reading skills (the Food and Drug Administration provides educational materials for retail food employees)
• Focusing on independent and smaller restaurants to ensure managers have access to food safety training programs and are encouraged to use them

Why this is important

More than half of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States are related to restaurants or delis.

To combat restaurant-related outbreaks, many public health agencies encourage or require food safety certification for restaurant kitchen managers and sometimes workers.

Food safety certification efforts are based on the belief that certification leads to greater food safety knowledge. But we need to know more about the link between certification and knowledge.

What we learned

Managers and workers who had been certified in food safety were more likely to pass a food safety knowledge test than those who were not certified. Additionally, managers and workers whose primary language was English were more likely to pass a knowledge test than those whose primary language was not English.

Other factors linked with passing the knowledge test included working in a chain restaurant, working in a larger restaurant, having more job-related experience, and having more job duties.

For both managers and workers, greater food safety knowledge was related to:

• Being certified in food safety
• Speaking English as a primary language

For managers, greater food safety knowledge was related to:

• Having more manager experience
• Working in a chain restaurant
• Working in a larger restaurant

For workers, greater food safety knowledge was related to:

• Having a manager with greater food safety knowledge
• Speaking English as a primary language
• Having a lot of job duties

More information

• Educational materials for retail food employees (Food and Drug Administration)
• Journal article this plain language summary is based on
• Other summaries related to certification: outbreaks and certified managers, certification and critical violations, and ground beef preparation
• More key findings on restaurant practices and from investigation data

About this study

This study was conducted by the Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net). EHS-Net is a federally funded collaboration of federal, state, and local environmental health specialists and epidemiologists working to better understand the environmental causes of foodborne illness.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Material produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a work of the United States government and is in the public domain.

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