Safety and authenticity risks in heritage food preparation at different types of food service establishments: A case study of Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, tourism is becoming increasingly popular, and forms an essential element of Vision 2030. Accordingly, food service establishments (FSEs) including hotels, ordinary restaurants, heritage restaurants and productive families (i.e., home-based catering) provide heritage cuisine to tourists. This study aimed to assess the authenticity and safety risks associated with the production of heritage food dishes in different FSEs. An online questionnaire was administered in Saudi Arabia, and a total of 85 culinary professionals from different FSEs responded. The culinary professionals were requested to provide opinions on the frequency of food safety and authenticity risk situations at their FSEs, using a five-point Likert scale. The results indicate that most food safety risk situations occur less frequently in hotels because of strict food safety management systems. In contrast, food safety risk situations are more frequent in ordinary and heritage restaurants, particularly in the absence of personal hygiene requirements. In productive families, most food safety risk situations occur because there are no control systems or inspections. Authenticity risks occur less frequently in productive families and heritage restaurants than in other FSEs. Hotels often/always face authenticity risk situations, such as cooking of heritage dishes by non-Saudi culinary professionals and the use of modern equipment. Ordinary restaurants face the highest risk, mostly because of the limited knowledge and skills of the cooks. Overall, this study provides the first insight into the occurrence of possible safety and authenticity risk situations during the preparation of heritage dishes; this information may contribute to improve the production of safe and authentic heritage dishes in the hospitality industry for tourists and local people.