title: Consumer Poultry Handling Behavior in the Grocery Store and In-Home Storage.
abstract: Considerable work on consumers' food safety habits has highlighted issues associated with home food preparation. However, consumer handling of foods, such as poultry, during shopping and storage has not been noted. The objective of this study was to determine consumer behaviors during purchasing and initial storage of raw poultry to determine potential cross-contamination issues. A shop-along observational study was conducted to determine actual shopping, transportation, and storage behavior of consumers who purchase raw poultry products. Neither hand sanitizer nor wipes were observed in 71% of grocery store meat sections of stores visited. Plastic bags could be found in the meat section 85% of the time, but only 25% of shoppers used the bag for their raw poultry purchases. During checkout, the poultry was bagged separately from other products 71% of the time. A majority of shoppers stored raw poultry in the original package without an additional container or overwrap. Overall, there needs to be an increase in food safety education on the handling of poultry during purchasing, transportation, and storage.
authors.affiliation: The Boston Beer Company, 1625 Central Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio 45214, USA.
authors.forename: Amy K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Donelan
authors.affiliation: Kansas State University, 1310 Research Park Drive, Manhattan, Kansas 66502, USA. delores@ksu.edu.
authors.forename: Delores H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Chambers
authors.affiliation: Kansas State University, 1310 Research Park Drive, Manhattan, Kansas 66502, USA.
authors.forename: Edgar
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chambers
authors.affiliation: Tennessee State University, 3500 John A. Merritt Boulevard, Nashville, Tennessee 37209, USA.
authors.forename: Sandria L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Godwin
authors.affiliation: RTI International, 3040 East Cornwallis Road, P.O. Box 12194, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, USA.
authors.forename: Sheryl C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Cates
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D005511:Food Handling / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D059022:Food Safety; D061353:Food Storage / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D011200:Poultry; D011202:Poultry Products / Q000382:microbiology*