Every organisation has to build their brand on specific associations that they want to be related to. These associations can be divided into two categories: points of parity and points of difference. Traditionally brands have been concentrating on the company’s points of difference in their positioning strategies. It is more complex to take the position of a point of parity than it of a point of difference. Positioning involves finding a distinct place in the customer’s memory for the right reasons the company wants to convey and in that way maximize the profit potential for the company. To be able to achieve this, the company need to define its target group, its competition, and in what way the brand are alike the competition and in what way they differ from their competition. Existing brands positioning derives from the brand’s identity. The problem question is how can an organisation gain the position of a point of parity? Food Safety is relevant to use as an example given that it is impossible to compromise with, since it could lead to bankruptcy if not properly handled. The aim is to dissolve the complexity of the situation by using well known theory about marketing strategies, brand building, positioning, brand identity, brand equity and communication. The solution consists of three phases that forms a model of a strategy. In the first phase the organisation need to set up their marketing and brand strategies, their frame of reference and decide on their identity, what point of parities and point of differences they want to be associated with. The second phase involves elaboration of the identity into brand equity. For a point of parity it is a longer process than for a point of difference. The last phase is the communication of the brands message and identity. Communication is the key to linking the identity to the customer. The steps are combined in the strategy set up in this research. Since markets are dynamic it is important to resubmit and keep working with all steps of the strategy.

Thesis (MPH.) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / Background: Street food vending has become a common means of providing traditional, known and convenient meals to communal eating. It has also become a growing portent as a means of job creation and as a survival mechanism to many affected by job creation decline. Suggestion: There is an influx of food vendors at Gate 2 of the University of Limpopo and there is a need to investigate both the hygiene and safety measures taken by the vendors and the environment they operate in. Methods: The purpose of the study was to observe and identify food safety and hygiene practices by the street vendors. An observational descriptive cross sectional study design and a convenience sampling technique were used as research designs and sampling methods. A questionnaire on food safety and hygiene was used to collect data. Results: The study revealed that all of the street vendors have no form of food safety and hygiene training. The vendors also highlighted the fact that over and above them having no food safety and hygiene knowledge, food safety and hygiene practices such as washing of hands frequently cannot be adhered to because of the time limitations they have to prepare and be ready for customers as quickly as possible. The vendors practise a mixed storage of raw and cooked food in the refrigerators within the refrigerators. Only 30% of the vendors wear protective hand gloves while preparing food. They have running water in the bathroom and on the premises but no soap is provided in the bathroom for hand washing. Conclusion: Even though street food is increasingly gaining popularity and accessibility based on affordability, traditional meals served and accessibility, food safety and hygiene still are a concern and a matter of alarm. Key words: food safety and hygiene, street food vendor, food poisoning, health hazards

Objetivo: Evaluar la asociación entre caries dental y el acceso al Programa de Nutrición Suplementaria Especial para Mujeres, Bebés y Niños (WIC) en niños menores o igual a 5 años de los Estados Unidos de América durante el año 2015-2016. Materiales y métodos: El presente estudio se realizó de tipo observacional, transversal, analítico y retrospectivo. Se utilizaron los datos de la Encuesta Nacional de Examen de Salud y Nutrición (NHANES) del año 2015-2016. Fueron encuestados 971 familias con niños ≤5 años. La variable dependiente fue caries dental, para la cual se evaluó la presencia de al menos un diente con caries dental coronal. Asimismo, para la variable independiente acceso al programa WIC, se empleó el cuestionario de ¨Seguridad Alimentaria¨. Además, se evaluaron otras características del niño y su familia. Se utilizó la prueba de chi-cuadrado para asociar caries dental con las demás variables con un nivel de significancia de p<0.05. Por otro lado, se realizó la asociación entre caries dental y el acceso al Programa WIC mediante la regresión de Poisson como estimador de varianza robusta en un modelo crudo y ajustado a las variables de interés y se reportaron razones de prevalencia e intervalos de confianza al 95%. Resultados: Al analizar la presencia de caries dental según el género se evidenció una diferencia significativa entre hombres y mujeres, siendo 9.5% y 4.7% respectivamente (p=0.020). Asimismo, los niños beneficiarios del programa WIC presentaron una prevalencia de caries dental de 9.4% con un IC al 95%. Conclusiones: En el presente estudio no se encontró asociación entre caries dental y el acceso al programa de Nutrición Suplementaria Especial para Mujeres, Bebés y Niños WIC en niños ≤5 años de los EE.UU entre los años 2015-2016. / Objective: To evaluate the association between dental caries and access to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) in children under 5 years of age in the United States of America during the year 2015-2016. Materials and methods: This study is of the observational, cross-sectional, analytical and retrospective type. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for the year 2015-2016 were used. 971 families with children ≤5 years old were surveyed. The dependent variable was dental caries, for which the presence of at least one tooth with coronal dental caries was evaluated. Likewise, for the independent variable access to the WIC program, the "Food Security" questionnaire was used. In addition, other characteristics of the child and his family were evaluated. The chi-square test was used to associate dental caries with the other variables with a significance level of p<0.05. On the other hand, the association between dental caries and access to the WIC Program was made using Poisson regression as an estimator of robust variance in a crude model and adjusted to the variables of interest, and prevalence ratios and 95% confidence intervals were reported. Results: When analyzing the presence of dental caries according to gender, a significant difference between men and women was evidenced, being 9.5% and 4.7% respectively (p = 0.020). Likewise, the children benefiting from the WIC program had a prevalence of dental caries of 9.4% with a 95% CI. Conclusions: In the present study, no association was found between dental caries and access to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children WIC in children ≤5 years of age in the US between the years 2015-2016.​ / Tesis

Magister Scientiae (Nutrition Management) - MSc(NM) / Introduction: The significant link between mental health and nutrition throughout one’s life cannot be overstated. Yet this strong association is often neglected in the public healthcare sector in South Africa, particularly in the case of people who are being treated for various types of mental illness. It is therefore important to prioritise nutrition care through efficient and effective hospital food services in public psychiatric facilities. Although hospital settings are often perceived to provide efficient clinical care, the food provided to patients by hospital food service units is often criticised for being bland, repetitive and/or unhealthy. At times, too, inadequate food budget allocations by provincial health departments or poor supply chain management practices result in patients receiving inadequate quantities of food at mealtimes, which might lead to their becoming malnourished during their hospital stays. For psychiatric patients in particular, malnutrition can have serious short and longer-term consequences.

Food-borne illnesses are responsible for disease globally. One of the most important strategies for combating food-borne diseases is the training of food handlers. Using social cognition theory as a framework, the purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the mandatory training program for food handlers in a rural parish in Jamaica. A cross-sectional survey, using self-administered questionnaires, was used to assess and compare food safety knowledge and self-reported practices of food handlers trained in 2 government training programs, while using untrained food handlers as controls. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as t test, chi-square test, and ANOVA were used to explore relationships between training and knowledge and practice. According to study results, trained food handlers had a statistically significant higher mean knowledge score (65.61% vs. 59.0%, p < 0.05) and mean practice score (67.40% vs. 60.35%, p < 0.05) than untrained food handlers, although these scores were significantly lower than the minimum acceptable standards of 70%. Results of this study may assist policy makers in designing effective training programs for food handlers, which should ultimately lead to a safer food supply for the consuming public and a reduction in food-borne disease outbreaks in Jamaica.

This work presents a new digital cooking process that utilizes heat from lasers to cookfood products. Unlike conventional cooking appliances, which heat an entire area by some uniform amount, lasers are unique in that they provide precision directional heating, they have a small form factor, and they are highly controllable using software. Lasers—as a cooking appliance—are of particular interest since they have a heating resolution that is on the same order of magnitude as the deposition path of a 3D food printer. While food printing is great for customized meal creation, we can print foods to millimeter resolution but we lack the ability to cook at this same resolution. Here, I primarily focus on the characterization of three different types of lasers: (1) a blue laser operating at 445 nm, (2) a near-infrared (NIR) laser operating at 980 nm, and (3) a mid-infrared (MIR) laser operating at 10.6 µm. Initial cooking apparatuses used a set of mirror galvanometers to direct visible blue light for cooking, then future iterations relied on the movement of a 3-axis gantry. Both blue and NIR lasers are diode lasers that can be mounted on a machine and the MIR laser is a standalone CO₂ gas laser. I characterize the heating behavior of the aforementioned lasers using dough, salmon, and chicken as model food systems. Different modes of cooking can be achieved by changing the wavelength of the light: infrared (IR) lasers are more well-suited for non-enzymatic browning and blue lasers are best for subsurface cooking (i.e. starch gelatinization of dough, protein denaturation of salmon and chicken). Precision “pulsed heating” with lasers also allows one to achieve food safe temperatures with greater accuracy and reduces overcooking, which leads to more moist food samples. Laser-baked dough can also achieve starch gelatinization. Food safe temperatures and browning can be achieved in dough, salmon, and chicken. Lastly, color development—as a result of laser exposure—is similar to conventionally cooked foods.

Human noroviruses are a major cause of acute gastroenteritis worldwide and can betransmitted through consumption of contaminated raw food. Shellfish like oysters can becontaminated by human sewage during production and accumulate multiple Norovirus strainsin low concentrations. Here we developed a simplified and cost effective targetedmetagenomic approach by sequencing PCR amplicons with next generation sequencing(NGS) of the capsid (VP1) viral gene. New design of reverse primers using the codehopstrategy and direct addition of illumina adapter with one step RT-PCR and sequencing onnano chip reduced hand on time and cost of the analysis. A mix of faecal samples and oystersamples associated with outbreaks were used to evaluate the ability and limitations in theidentification of strains from Norovirus genogroup I (GI) and genogroup II (GII). Withsamples containing only one genotype the method was able to identify all strains. Usingartificially mixed samples the method was able to identify almost all strains except a few GIIat low concentrations. Oyster samples showed more limitations for the method and it waswere only able to identify the strain in some of the samples but did find multiple GI strains inmore than one sample. Despite some limitations, the simplified method for VP1-targetedmetagenomics is a sensitive approach allowing the study of norovirus diversity incontaminated oysters and the identification of norovirus strains implicated in outbreaks. Thisat a lower cost and hands on time compared to published methods.

Foodborne illness is a serious and preventable public health problem affecting 1 in 6 Americans with cost estimates over $50 billion annually. Local health departments license and inspect restaurants to ensure food safety and respond to reports of suspected foodborne illness. The City of St. Louis Department of Health adopted the HealthMap Foodborne Dashboard (Dashboard), a tool that monitors Twitter for tweets about food poisoning in a geographic area and allows the health department to respond. We evaluated the implementation by interviewing employees of the City of St. Louis Department of Health involved in food safety. We interviewed epidemiologists, environmental health specialists, health services specialists, food inspectors, and public information officers. Participants viewed engaging innovation participants and executing the innovation as challenges while they felt the Dashboard had relative advantage over existing reporting methods and was not complex once in place. This study is the first to examine practitioner perceptions of the implementation of a new technology in a local health department. Similar implementation projects should focus more on process by developing clear and comprehensive plans to educate and involve stakeholders prior to implementation.

Limited data are currently available characterizing the thermal resistance of foodborne pathogens in semolina flour and intermediate pasta matrices representative of commercial conditions during mixing, extrusion, and drying. These data are essential to pasta producers seeking to be compliant with federal regulations since Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli demonstrate survival in wheat flour and dried pasta products. This study investigated the heat resistance of Salmonella, pathogenic E. coli, and E. faecium NRRL B-2354 in raw semolina flour and partially dried pasta intermediates via thermal death time (TDT) studies. This study also assessed the appropriateness of E. faecium NRRL B-2354 as a surrogate in semolina flour and pasta matrices. Inoculated pasta matrices equilibrated to target water activities of 0.85, 0.88, and 0.91 (measured at 25°C) underwent isothermal inactivation treatments at 65°C, 70°C, and 75°C. Serial dilution and direct plating methods allowed for estimation of bacterial survival at each treatment. In representative pasta matrices, the D-values for each microorganism increased as water activity decreased from 0.91 to 0.85. Surprisingly, Salmonella and E. coli did not exhibit significantly different thermal resistance in pasta. The greatest heat resistance was seen in semolina flour (aw 0.45). E. faecium was significantly more thermal resistant than both pathogens in all treatments when the temperature was ≤ 70°C. The results show that E. faecium strain NRRL B-2354 is not an ideal proxy for Salmonella and E. coli in semolina and pasta matrices. Analysis of the TDT data also found that a long-goods pasta drying process can achieve ≥7-log reductions of Salmonella and E. coli when following Good Manufacturing Practices.

<p>Food safety is important to prevent foodborne illnesses that can negatively affect public health and the economy. Preventative measures can be taken by government agencies, food-related workers, and consumers to reduce the occurrence of such illnesses. This paper examines the impact of government policies on food safety from the perspective of consumers, restaurant employees and employers, and food processing workers. The first essay explores how food safety recalls affect consumer behavior. The second essay studies the impact of minimum wage policies on service quality in the restaurant industry. The third essay investigates the effect of minimum wage policies on product food safety in the meat and poultry processing industry. </p>