Serious consequences can arise from lack of hygiene in mass catering. Microbiological testing is of value in determining hazards for developing a HACCP plan, and in demonstrating to food handlers the reality of the microbial risk. This studies was performed to describe the overall hygiene of cooking utensils and equipments, employees, and environment in mass catering establishments. Generally, hygienic conditions of cutting board and sanitized dish cloth were better than those of other cooking utensils such as knife, sieve, and peeler. It was found that the cross-contamination of knife might be caused by the use of contaminated sanitizing solution. It was observed that there was considerable variation (10¹-10^5 CFU) of the number of general bacteria for employee's hands. The number of general bacteria were influenced from establishment, employee, and the period of analysis. The number of Coliform group for employee's hands was in the range of 10²-10⁴ CFU only at the first analysis. Total aerial bacteria in working area of mass catering establishments was below 7 CFU/Plate and aerial Staphylococcus sp. was not detected at all except one spot.

Korea market of food service industry has been increased greatly since early 90's with the emergence of professional catering business and the expansion of school food service. Because of the characteristics of food service establishment, feeding many people at a time, there is always a high potential of foodborne outbreak which requires special sanitary management to prevent. Currently, many catering businesses are interested in HACCP(Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points), a new sanitary management system, and are trying to develop HACCP Plans for their food service establishment. Microbiological hazard analysis, a most important step for developing HACCP Plan, provides also basic information for evaluating sanitary aspect of prepared foods and their materials. There are not extensive data of microbiological hazard analysis for food service operations, especially for prepared foods and raw materials, which are helpful for developing a HACCP Plan. The extensive microbiological hazard analyses for 65 prepared foods and 51 raw materials selected from a couple of food service establishment were performed in this research. These results will provide useful information to determine hazards for developing a HACCP plan, and also to understand sanitary status for prepared foods and raw materials in food service establishment.