Maintenance management is significant in determining the extent of achievement of production system objectives (manufacturing and service alike). It has thus received attention in recent times. In this work, maintenance practice factor (MPF) and maintenance practice contribution (MPC) quantitative measures were formulated to appraise the maintenance practice in food industries in Nigeria. The use of questionnaire and oral interviews were used to collect information from 40 food industries. The industries are grouped into meat and meat product, dairy and milk, beverages and brewery, and confectionery. Six types of maintenance being practiced are identified as preventive, predictive, corrective, running, overhauling and breakdown. The quantitative measures (MPF and MPC) were used to determine the extent of maintenance practice by various groups and degree of practice of each of the identified maintenance methods. These results showed that confectionery involved in maintenance practice greatly than others with MPF of 81.94%. Also, overhauling is the most practiced maintenance method with an average MPC of 24.40%. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.