An Assessment of Food Safety Risk at Fairs and Festivals: A Comparison of Health Inspection Violations Between Fairs and Festivals and Restaurants

Food safety practices have always been a sensitive topic for food service providers and consumers. Consumers want to know if the food they consume has been prepared safely. Food service establishment inspections by health inspectors are considered a reflection of restaurant cleanliness and presumably represent the "safety" of the establishment when eating out. Food services at temporary events, such as fairs, festivals, and farmers' markets are inspected differently from restaurants, however, and in some cases may not required to be inspected at all according to some state food codes if they are "not-for-profit." The purpose of this study, therefore, was to investigate the differences in health inspection violations between temporary food services (those found at fairs, festivals, and farmers' markets) and restaurants. The study provides event planners with insight into the most common violations at these locations to help guide them to hold events successfully without occurrence of food-borne illnesses outbreaks at fairs, festivals, and farmers' markets. In fact, results of this study showed that more violations were found in restaurants than in temporary food services. Results of the study suggested that training for food handler and inspection guidelines for temporary food services should differ from those of permanent food service establishments.