Best Practices in Canteen Management and Operation

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Review of Related Literature

3. Research Questions

4. Hypotheses

5. Scope and Limitations

6. Ethical Issues

7. Methodology

8. Sampling and Population

9. Respondents of the study

10. Data Collection Instruments
10.1 Survey Questionnaire
10.2 Unstructured Interview

11. Results and Discussion

12. Conclusions

13. Recommendations

14. References

15. SWOT narrative in the Matrix of Strategic Plan

1. Introduction

The school canteen reflects the value habits of putting on healthy eating practices to the pupils and teachers alike. In addition to providing nutritious food, the canteen is important to health in promoting its role within the school. For pupils who use canteen services regularly, the food purchased there makes a significant contribution to their total daily food intake and nutrition. Nutrition is important for young growing mind and bodies.

Children’s nutritional status is one of the huge problems in the world at present. Obesity, a undernourished nutritional status is the common issues and concerns of learners.

Schools are considered as second homes for the learners; teachers are considered as the second parents and the school canteen is considered as the second kitchen of the pupils. The school canteen serves as the service provider of the school with regard to food to be served for the learners, teachers, and school heads and even parents and school guests.

Parents, teachers, school heads are working hand in hand to resolve these issues among learners. The government has launched several projects and problem to address this nutritional health problem of school children.

The school canteen is one of the services provided for learners in school when it comes to food. Parents are considering what kind of food is to be served for their children at home, so, they also expect that the school canteen will do so. Parents would also like to ensure that the kinds of food their children partake in the school are safe. Parents consider also where to enroll their children so that they can be nourishing not only in mind but also in body.

The school canteen plays a vital role in school operations in providing cheap, yet nutritious food for the learners. The school canteen supplies and generates additional income for the school and this flows back for the schools daily operations. The school canteen can be managed by a school teacher or the school may hire outside personnel.

Nowadays, schools are experiencing a congested number of learners inside the school canteen especially in urban areas. Schools in urban areas become more congested every year, and school canteens were neglected by some school heads to provide bigger areas to accommodate a large number of learners to serve nutritious food for affordable prices that learners can buy.

A school canteen needs to continue to provide food for the school community despite having a small space in preparing the food for its clientele, and patrons.

In this regard, the researcher was motivated to develop the best practices of canteen management and operations for purposes of delivering quality service to the clientele, with improved operations of the canteen in the entire Division of Cavite. Furthermore, it is a desire of the researcher to engage more in effective operations to provide more income that would flow back the profits to the programs and projects of the school. This study is conducted in the Division of Cavite for this school year 2017-2018.

2. Review of Related Literature

The environment can exert a strong influence on people’s food decisions. In order to facilitate students to make healthier food choices and to develop healthy eating habits, it is important that the school food environment is healthy. The healthy school canteen program is an intervention that helps schools make their cafeterias offerings healthier.

According to Aquino, Correa, and Ani, (2014), they state that one of the basic needs of man is to provide the health requirements of a person in order to live. The availability of food on a plate of every Filipino is among the main concerns of the government in achieving food security. The Philippines has a number of policies being implemented that recognize the pivotal role of improving food production and supply to meet the ever-growing food demand. However, more that achieving availability and sufficiency of supply, food security is also defined as access to a safe and nutritious food (FAO, 2014). Food safety refers to the assurance that food will not cause harm, human health is protected and market access of locally produced foods and food product is facilitated.

Palacio, (2004), as cited by Boringot, (2016), that a continuous educational program for food service personnel is obligatory if a high standard of sanitation is to be maintained. This program should keep the employees aware of sanitary procedures and practices and why they are important. Also employees must continuously realize that heavy responsibilities that they, as food services personnel, assume for the health and well-being of their own good health, personal hygiene, work habits and the inherent dangers in improper care of and handling of food should be emphasized. The educational program that combines the why, with the how to do is usually a well-organized, systematic and functioning program.

Tawagon, (2005), as cited by Ongotan, (2013), author of quantity cookery stated that people involved in quantity production need to consider the following protective measures to observe sanitation and hygiene. Be willing to be educated on the fundamentals of food sanitation; be willing to learn and use sanitary techniques at all times; be health conscious, of clean appearance, practice good personal hygiene, report any symptom of sore throat, head and cold flu, nausea and diarrhea infected sores, burns and other infections; keep undesirable hand habits under control such as fingering his nose and other parts of the body; refrain from sneezing unto food; wash hands thoroughly after each visit to the toilet; wash after handling raw meat, poultry, sea foods, egg and before handling other food; hands need to be washed after handling soiled articles and frequently during the day; use clean sanitary equipment; keep work surfaces clean and orderly; clean-up spills promptly; keep hands out of food as much as possible; use appropriate clean utensils, instead; severe use a tasting spoon twice; always touch spoons, knives, forks and other eating utensils by handles, glasses by base, cups by handles and plates by rims; use whenever possible separate cutting boards, blocks, tables, grinders. Slicers, and other utensils for raw and cooked foods; if same equipment must be used, thoroughly clean and sanitize the equipment used for a raw food after each use; when storing food, arrange it so that bottom of containers will not contaminate food stored underneath since containers that have touched unsanitary surfaces are loaded with bacteria; protect food from dust, flies, cockroach and rodents. Never leave food out overnight; and cover food except when it is actually manipulated.

Cooperatives as spelled out in the DepEd Order No. 95, series, (2008), shall be responsible for: quality handling of food served, canteen sanitations, proper use of facilities for laboratory purposes of the students as required by the trades/home economics canteen teachers; shall see to it that hired people handling food in the canteen shall undergo training for food handling and shall obtain certificates of good health from the local/provincial/city/municipal health office and shall observe personal hygiene; shall provide cheap, sanitary and nutritious food such as fresh milk, fresh fruits, fruit drinks, boiled root crops, high calorie indigenous recipes and the like and shall use iodized salt in food preparation; shall limit snacks, lunch supplements and school lunch for sale to food that can easily be prepared and will best supplement the children’s home diet and shall ban the sale of convenient empty calorie food such as carbonated drinks, chips, curls, and other air-filled “sitsiryas”, candies, synthetic juice drinks, beverages and artificially colored water-sugar based candies; cooperative is prohibited from sub leasing the whole or part of the operations of said canteen premises and facilities.

The Philippines star, (2008), featured teaching children financial responsibilities and techniques. Budget according to the newspaper, is the heart of financial planning. Let both adult and kids establish priorities and control spending and these habits will ultimately result in saving money. It takes a long time and a good deal of effort to establish a budget nearly works but the result is worth.

Shamrao et al, (2016), as the students’ attitude towards education has changing, colleges and their canteens must provide healthy and quality food to students. If the students are satisfied with quality, variety, and environment of the canteens then they will not go anywhere out of the college premise to get their food. Ultimately canteens requires that students want a quality food, environment and are willing to “pay” for it, possibly through higher priced foods, until this occurs it will be difficult for canteens to get benefit.

3. Research Questions

This study aims to determine the best practices in Canteen Management and Operations in the Division of Cavite for the School year 2017-2018. Specifically, the study seeks to answer the following sub-problems.

1. How do School Heads, Canteen Managers and Teachers assess the School Canteen Management and Operations in the following dimensions:
1.1 Objectives;
1.2 Equipment and Facilities;
1.3 Food Management;
1.4 Personnel Management;
1.5 Hygiene, sanitation and safety management;
1.6 Financial management?
2. Is there a significant difference in the assessment of the three groups of respondents on the aforementioned variables?
3. How do the respondents assess the utilization of the canteen funds as to :
3.1 Supplementary feeding program;
3.2 School clinic funds;
3.3 Faculty and development funds;
3.4 H.E. Instructional funds;
3.5 School operation funds;
3.6 Revolving capital?
4. What are the hindering and facilitating factors of canteen management and operations of selected schools in the province of Cavite?
5. Is there a significant relationship between the facilitating and hindering factors with the School Canteen Management and Operation?

4. Hypotheses

The following hypotheses will be tested in this study:

1. There is no significant difference between the teachers Best practices in canteen management and operation as assessed by the school heads, canteen managers and teachers in the following dimensions: objectives, Equipment and facilities, Food management, Personnel management, Hygiene, sanitation and safety management, Financial management.
2. There is no significant relationship between facilitating and hindering factors with the School Canteen Management and Operations.

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