Author: Hetanshi Gori, Pranjal Vavhal and Shubham Thakkar.
Introduction: The canteen plays an important role in meeting the daily food requirements of students and staff. However, issues related to food quality, hygiene, pricing, and service often affect customer satisfaction. This study focuses on identifying the major problems associated with canteen food services and understanding the perceptions of consumers. The findings of this research can help in improving overall food quality and service standards in canteens.
Objective: To understand underlying issues of Canteen Food Services.
Literature Review:
A Review of the Nutritional Quality of School Canteen Foods in South Asia
Purva Sharma et al (2019), said that in schools, canteens play a crucial role in ensuring nutritional well-being of adolescents. Regular consumption of unhealthy food items purchased from the school canteens may add to the existing burden of malnutrition in children, especially adolescents. A narrative review was conducted to comprehensively summarize the nutritional quality of food products served in South Asian school canteens. Three electronic scientific databases were searched for articles and selected articles were analyzed. Literature review indicated the absence of school food policy/ guidelines, unhygienic school canteens, high availability and accessibility of unhealthy foods in school canteens and lack of awareness regarding healthy school food environment among parents, teachers, students, and principals. Further, well-designed studies to assess the nutritional quality of foods served in school canteens using appropriate indices are required.
Consumption of canteen food items among college students of Ludhiana city
Anjali Kumari and Surinderjt Kaur (2017), said that the consumption pattern of college canteen food among students in Ludhiana city and assessed their satisfaction with canteen services. Findings showed that a majority of students consumed canteen food daily, preferring fried, packaged, and sugary foods despite being aware of their poor nutritional quality. Most respondents were dissatisfied with hygiene, sanitation, food quality, and nutritive value, though taste and affordability encouraged frequent consumption. The study highlights serious health risks associated with fast-food dependence and poor canteen hygiene. It emphasizes the need for nutrition education, improved food quality, and better hygiene standards in college canteens.
Data Collection: To understand the underlying issues of canteen food services. Following 5 questions are framed on Likert scale (5 point scale). A google form was framed with linear scale 1 to 5. Data was coded as 5 for strongly agree, 4 for agree, 3 for neutral, 2 for disagree and 1 for strongly disagree. 100 students of ITM were surveyed and data was downloaded as excel sheet. For each question mean, standard deviation, standard error and t statistics was calculated.
Data Analysis:
|
|
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
Q4 |
Q5 |
|
Mean |
2.52 |
2.15 |
2.35 |
2.38 |
3.04 |
|
Standard Deviation |
1.30 |
1.14 |
1.19 |
1.19 |
1.24 |
|
Standard Error |
0.13 |
0.11 |
0.12 |
0.12 |
0.12 |
|
T Stat |
-20.58 |
-24.16 |
-22.81 |
-22.89 |
-21.18 |
All the t stats values are less than -1.96 so people disagree with all the statements.
Conclusion:
People do not regularly eat canteen food.
People do not consider canteen food to be healthy.
People are not satisfied with the hygiene of the canteen.
People do not trust the quality of canteen food.
People do not find canteen food affordable.
Reference:
Purva Sharma et al (2019). A Review of the Nutritional Quality of School Canteen Foods in South Asia. Indian journal of public health research and development. (10/7), (07/2019), (1600-1606).
Kumari Anjali and Surinderjt Kaur (2017). Consumption of canteen food items among college students of Ludhiana city. International journal of applied home science. (4,5 and 6), (05-06/2017), (248-258).