Based on the previous research results and own experiences two scientific hypotheses were formulated.

Hypothesis H1: We assume that the knowledge level of the food handlers in school catering services in relation with food intolerances is rather low, as these workers do not have such education or training.

Hypothesis H2: We assume that the job type, the age, the time spent in catering sector (work experiences) and the education level are correlated with the knowledge about food intolerances.

The goal of the survey was to evaluate the general knowledge of food handlers on food allergies and food intolerances, by conducting a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was prepared by the help of food experts, and the suggestions of literature sources dealing with this topic were also taken into consideration. (Ajala et al., 2010; Dzwolak, 2017; Lee and Sozen, 2018). The first version of the questionnaire was filled in after preliminary discussions by 24 kitchen workers, and based on the experiences and suggestions, some modifications were conducted. The final version of the questionnaire contained 12 questions, from which the 4^th question included 9 sub-questions. Three questions were related to the knowledge of food and meals which may cause food intolerances, 5 questions were related to the main characteristics of food intolerances and 4 questions were related to the appropriate preparation and handling techniques of dietary meals.

Besides the questions related to the knowledge of food handlers, additional demographic questions were also given to help in the deeper analysis of the results, namely age, job/profile, work experiences in the catering sector, educational level and skills. Each proper answer represented one point and in case of question 4, partial points were also given. The maximum result was 12 points. The results are shown in the percentage of the maximum points.

The survey was conducted in June of 2018. The questionnaires were filled in during special training days organized for the food handlers, it means that workers should not work in their shifts at that day. All food workers were employees of different school catering units (kindergartens, primary and secondary schools), some of them worked at cooking kitchens and the other part worked in institutions with serving kitchens. 215 workers filled in the questionnaire, 180 of them worked as kitchen maid, 24 as cook and 11 workers as storage manager.

The kitchen workers of the sample previously took part regularly at compulsory trainings in food hygiene topics, but they did not have specific knowledge about food allergies and food intolerances before filling in the questionnaire. They could rely on only their general knowledge and experiences while responding the questions.

Data processing and statistical analyses were performed by using the IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 for Windows. On one hand, in order to compare means between two groups, we used the independent two-sample t tests. On the other hand, when comparing more than two groups, we used one-way variance analysis (one-way ANOVA). The equality of group variances was tested by Levene-test. Significant differences were detected by using the Duncan’s multiple range test in the case of equal variances; while in case of different variances, we used the Tamhane-test.

The average age of the respondents at the time of the survey was 49 years, the youngest food worker was 22 years old, and the oldest was 75 years old. 35% of the respondents were in the age group of older than 55 years, 48% of the respondents were between 40 – 54 years old and 15% was younger than 39 years old. Five respondents did not indicate their age group, so their answers were not taken into consideration in calculations related to age. The majority (92%) of the respondents was female. The general distribution of educational level showed a relatively balanced image: 28% of respondents indicated that their highest educational level is elementary school, 36% of them finished basic professional level of education (semi-skilled) and 34% of them had secondary or higher education level. Three respondents did not answer for the question related to the educational level. 118 kitchen maids worked at serving kitchens, the others worked at cooking kitchens, from this 62 worked as kitchen maids. Nearly half of the respondents (102 food handlers) indicated that they have more than 10 years of experience in the catering sector (Table 1).

The average result of the tests was 89.16%, standard deviation was 12.26%. The worst result was 22.92%, the best result was 100%.

According to the job (position), there were significant differences between kitchen maids and cooks. Although the average result the storage managers was better than the results of kitchen maids, significant differences were not detected (Table 1). According to the statistical analyses, there were no correlations between the educational levels, age of respondents, work experience, and there were no differences in the knowledge level of kitchen staff working in cooking and serving kitchens (Table 1).

The distribution of the answers of the 215 respondents is shown in Table 2. The questions were separated into three groups:

‐ food knowledge related to meals which may have impact on hypersensitive individuals (i.e. allergenic food) were represented by questions No. 1., 2. and 4.,

The knowledge of the respondents about those food components and meals, which may cause problems for hypersensitive individuals was answered successfully with 91% ±13% result, there were no differences according to the age and job of the food handlers.

Nevertheless, the result of workers with professional education showed significantly better results, compared to workers with elementary education. Other correlations were detected according to the working experience and the knowledge of food that may cause harmful reactions for hypersensitive consumers. Those workers, who had less than one year of working experience, reached worse results than those who had more than 5 years of working experience. The workers of cooking kitchens also reached better results in total, but in case of kitchen maids, their group did not show such differences according to their kitchen type (i.e. cooking or serving kitchens).

The respondents of the survey reached the best results in these field, the average result and deviation was 92% ±15%. There were no differences according to job, age and working experience, moreover the type of kitchen also did not influence the results. The results of respondents with elementary educational level were worse than the responses of skilled and semi-skilled kitchen workers.

This part of the survey brought the worst results, the average result and deviation was 83% ±22%. The storage managers reached better results than the kitchen maids, but the cooks did not differ from the other groups. The results of kitchen maids working in cooking kitchens were better than of those who worked in serving kitchens. This part of the results was not influenced by the age, educational level and working experience.

Nowadays, the importance of the existence of food intolerances is increasing in the school catering sector, and one of the most important players of this process is the group of food handlers, who works at the end of the food chain. Food handlers serve the consumers directly, i.e. food handlers will make the final decision about the food (meal): is it safe or not? In this situation, the responsibility of the food handlers is very high, and the knowledge of these workers will determine the final objective, i.e. to serve the appropriate meal for each customers. As the number of children with food allergies and intolerances showed a growing tendency in the past decades, so it is necessary to improve the knowledge level of food workers in this specific topic. The primary goal of our research was to explore and evaluate the knowledge of kitchen workers of the school catering sector in relation with this topic, and to determine those factors, which may influence the knowledge on food hypersensitivity issues.

Our survey was conducted by a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, which was elaborated based on the findings of different literature sources. Based on the feedbacks, we could detect some problems. For example, the 4^th question of our questionnaire was not appropriate for measuring the knowledge properly. In this question, chocolate and strawberry was indicated by almost 50% of the respondents as major allergens. Of course, chocolate and strawberry allergy is existing, but they are not so frequent and dangerous, so the term “major allergen” is not clear in this aspect. This problem was also highlighted by previous researchers as well, such type of questions cannot be understood clearly, so the answers might be very diverse (Ajala et al., 2010; Lee and Sozen, 2018).

The respondents of the survey have not passed previously any specific training in the topic of food hypersensitivity; they have finished only general training courses in food hygiene topics. Thus, according to our first hypothesis, they do not have high level of knowledge, or they have different knowledge levels related to topics in food allergy and food intolerances. In our research, the average score of 215 food handlers was 89.16% with a deviation of 12.27%, which was higher than the preliminary expectations. The scores on the different questions showed a wide range between 75 – 98%, excluding the results of question 4, which was not considered in the final evaluation. The findings of other literature sources showed lower scores for such questions: according to the findings of Lee and Sozen (2018), the results of the food handlers were between 41.5 – 89.5%, and the results of Ayala et al. (2010) were between 69 – 84%.

Based on the abovementioned facts, we rejected our first hypotheses (H1), because the knowledge level of Hungarian food handlers, who did not have previous specific knowledge on food hypersensitivity, cannot be considered as low, even in international comparison.

According to our results, there were some correlations between the knowledge of the food handlers and their job (position). For the position of kitchen maid, no educational requirements are needed, therefore, it was assumed, that their knowledge will be lower than the knowledge of the skilled worker cooks and storage managers. This assumption was verified only in case of the comparison with cooks. The results of other previous researches on the knowledge of food hygiene issues (Illés et al., 2018) also showed that there is no correlation between the knowledge and working position of the food workers working in positions like kitchen maids, cooks and storage managers. There were no correlations at all between the test results and the educational level, working experiences and age, in addition, the type of the working place (i.e. cooking or serving kitchens) have not shown any correlations with the knowledge of food handlers. As cooks and storage managers work only in cooking kitchens, an additional analysis was conducted only for the evaluation of kitchen maids, who work in both kitchen types (Table 1).

Based on the abovementioned results, H2 hypotheses was rejected, because the age, the working experience in the catering sector and the educational level did not show correlations with the knowledge level, while the job profile (position) was just partly influenced by the knowledge on food hypersensitivity.

During the analysis of the different fields, it was an alarming observation that the worst results were achieved in the questions related to handling of dietary food. These questions were connected to the everyday working processes and practices of food handlers. Based on these results it is clearly concluded that there is need for specific education and trainings in this topic. Another important observation was related to the knowledge of allergens. Respondents, who have only elementary education level, reached lower scores in general knowledge on the reasons of food intolerances and allergies. To provide safe dietary food for the consumers at cooking or serving kitchens is the responsibility of the food catering service. Therefore, food caterers and food services shall ensure the traceability of allergenic components, which shall be built into their monitoring system based on the principles of HACCS and GHP, and this traceability process is to be monitored by the authorities (Fontcuberta-Famadas et al., 2018). In the course of preparing dietary meals, the general principle is that preparation of dietary food should be separated in time and place. The cleanness of the devices and utensils should be ensured, because the surfaces of the equipment may be a primary source of cross-contaminations (Ortiz et al., 2018). The production and supply of allergen-free food may have several hidden dangers, for which the food producer or food provider shall take the responsibility. Besides other previous researches (Ahuja and Sicherer, 2007), our survey results also highlighted that the sources of such dangers frequently arise from the non-appropriate knowledge of food handlers.