ABSTRACT

The study focused on the assessment of customer’s perception on hygiene practice among food vendors in tertiary institutions, a study of Abia state University. The following specific were raised from the study; Investigate the perception of customers towards food handling and hygiene practices among food vendors, Determine the customer’s attitude towards hygiene practices among food vendors, Ascertain customer’s knowledge of standard hygiene food practices among others. To achieve the objective of the study, survey research design was adopted. The researcher adopted primary data in getting the required information through the use of structured questionnaire. The population of the study is 200.The sample size of the study has 133 respondents after adopting the statistical formula derived by Taro Yamane. In analysis the data, simple descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentage was used to analyze respondent’s personal data while frequencies and percentage, and mean was used to analyze the research question. The findings revealed that unkept service environment can expose customers to food-borne illness, lack of frequently washing of their hands often before serving of food, food vendors do not cover their heads while serving of food and poor cleaning of service equipment’s such as tables and chairs before serving of food are the perception of customers towards food handling and hygiene practices among food vendors. The findings also reveal that there is total rejection of food by customers, loss of appetite by customers, lack of satisfaction by customers, lack of customer’s patronage as a result of unhygienic practices among food vendor are the customer’s attitude towards hygiene practices among food vendors. The study recommends that Hygiene practices include washing and sanitizing of all  equipment including utensils, knives chopping boards and work surfaces before and after use when preparing different foods  and the training of food handling personnel is critical, also the personnel should be aware of their roles and responsibility in protecting the food from contamination, thus ensuring that clients meals are free from any type of contamination and the prospective food handlers seeking an eatery in Abia state University should compulsorily made to have pre-employment examination to assess his or her level of knowledge of food hygiene by sanitary health officers of environmental health unit.