Identifying baseline food safety training practices for retail delis using the Delphi expert consensus method

With the seriousness of foodborne illness risk in the deli industry, more emphasis is being placed on food safety training for deli employees. It is critical to identify the minimal, baseline training that must be given to every new employee in order to keep the public safe from foodborne illnesses. Food safety objectives (286) were obtained based on the 2009 United States Food and Drug Administration Food Code and four online food safety training platforms, and were screened by expert Beta panelists to 75. These were presented to 15 experts currently working in or managing retail delis in a three round modified Delphi technique by means of Qualtrics survey software. Delphi is a unique method to develop group consensus for what should be included in subject matter where precise information is not readily available. In the first Delphi round none of the objectives, including those from the FDA Model Food Code, reached the consensus level. A 5-point Likert scale was used to identify the relevance of each deli specific, food safety objective. The results of our statistical analysis were presented to the expert panel before each subsequent Delphi round, so that by the third iteration, 53% of the panelists agreed with the inclusion of particular deli specific training objectives. Fifty-eight of the 75 training objectives achieved at least a 70% consensus rate. None of the current online food safety training materials addresses deli specific content. The results of this research could serve as a guideline when food safety instructors in deli operations develop their own training materials or to identify key concepts in existing training platforms.