Students' food safety concerns and choice of eating place in Ghana

- Students' food safety concerns can help improve on food quality and services.
- Little research is done on influence of food safety concerns on choice of eatery.
- Students' food safety concern determines their choice of eatery.
- Food safety concerns should be given needed attention.

Food safety concerns are critical elements in improving food services and subsequently enhancing patronage of food service establishments. Despite its critical role in determining the viability of food service establishments, little empirical studies have attempted to link food safety to choice of eating places especially in non-western societies. Using the University of Cape Coast as a case study, data was collected from a randomly sampled 1106 students and analysed with the binary logistic regression. The study revealed that students who were concerned with food safety issues have higher tendencies of eating from restaurants than unorganised food service establishments (bush canteen) despite its high price tags. The study therefore concluded that food safety concerns determine the choice of an eatery.