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The purpose of this paper is to provide information on the consumer management of refrigerated food, establish the level and the incidence of bacterial contamination and operating temperatures in domestic refrigerators from north and centre Italy.

A questionnaire was designed involving 24 questions which covered three topics: the socio-demographic data, the domestic management of refrigerated food and general information about the refrigerator. The questionnaire responses were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis and further processed with the multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and cluster analysis (CA). Based on MCA and CA, 84 refrigerators were selected to assess the temperature and the microbiological status (total viable counts (TVC); Enterobacteriaceae total counts (ETC); Salmonella spp. and Listeria spp.).

Totally, 660 interviews were carried out. The majority of respondents were female (81.4 per cent) and were married (71.4 per cent). Almost an half of them were between 31 and 50 years old (48.2 per cent) and had a secondary school degree (47 per cent). Regarding domestic management of refrigerated food, the majority of respondents (87.2 per cent) were aware of the correct temperature range (1-5°C) for retail refrigerator units, but only 18 per cent of them check the temperature. Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella spp. were not recovered; Listeria innocua was recovered (2.4 per cent). Regarding the TVC values, the 21.5 per cent of the tested refrigerators were classified as insufficient (from 100 to 104 cfu/cm2) or inadequate (>104 cfu/cm2). Consumer education should be focused in order to reduce foodborne disease. Only safety-conscious consumers can become active partners within the food safety chain.

Result obtained from the present survey revealed that consumers are not familiar with their role in the food safety chain and that they allow numerous opportunities for microbiological contamination of food. The study clearly indicates the need for greater consumer education regarding proper domestic refrigerator management. Indeed, appropriate behaviours could make the refrigerator less likely to act as a significant niche for persistence and dissemination of food pathogens.