Be Proactive and Don’t End Up in Food Safety Jail!
Ok, I admit – there really is no food safety jail. But there is jail and, while it is uncommon, you can be sent there for not practicing food safety. Just the other day, I ran across a news report about two individuals in Wales who were sent to jail (albeit a suspended sentence) for “failing to take action to protect food from the risk of contamination; placing unsafe food on the market; failing to comply with a Remedial Action Notice and operating the business without approval after permission to supply seafood was suspended.”
You might be thinking to yourself that this took place in Wales, and you wouldn’t go to jail in the United States for a food safety violation. While you would be partially correct that you might not go to jail for one violation, for failing to act to prevent unsafe conditions you most certainly could.
Take for example United States v. DeCoster – 828 F.3d 626 (8th Cir. 2016), where Austin and Peter DeCoster (father and son) pled guilty to misdemeanor violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act for selling adulterated eggs into interstate commerce. The eggs were found to be infected with salmonella enteritidis and caused almost 2000 consumer illnesses across the US in the summer of 2010. In the end, a million eggs were recalled. In this example, it was clear the company was placing profits over the welfare of customers.
… the fact remains that even without legal fines and possibly jail time, consequences can be devastating if a foodservice operation is involved in an outbreak.
You might recall the Listeria monocytogenes outbreak involving cantaloupe in the fall of 2011. The owners, Eric and Ryan Jensen, were charged with unknowingly introducing adulterated cantaloupe into interstate commerce. In the end, over 147 people fell ill, killing 33 individuals across 28 different states. They faced a sentence of over six years in jail and over $1.5 million in fines. They ultimately avoided a jail sentence by pleading guilty and were sentenced to five years of probation, and were ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution, complete 100 hours of community service, and were sentenced to six months of home detention.
Yes, it is true that none of these cases involve food service operations, but it doesn’t mean that it could not happen. The practice of holding business owners accountable for the wrongful acts of their employees, even criminally, seems to be occurring more and more often. The Department of Justice implemented a policy in 2015 to hold individuals responsible for corporate wrongdoing.
While the policy memorandum did point out several challenges to pursuing such accountability, it did note, “one of the most effective ways to combat corporate misconduct is by seeking
accountability from the individuals who perpetrated the wrongdoing. Such accountability is important for several reasons: it deters future illegal activity; it incentivizes changes in corporate behavior, it ensures that the proper parties are held responsible for their actions, and it promotes the public’s confidence in our justice system.”
While there are several restaurants that have handled a large-scale foodborne illness outbreak and have not gone bankrupt, including Jack in the Box, Chipotle, and Taco Bell, the fact remains that even without legal fines and possibly jail time, consequences can be devastating if a foodservice operation is involved in an outbreak. Plunging sales, product liability lawsuits, and government fines can all take a heavy toll on operators faced with such an outbreak.
In the end, it is vital that you are keeping an eye on your employee food safety practices, making sure corners are not being cut, ensuring employees receive the proper training to prevent outbreaks and protect the public, and keeping up with recent advances in food safety.
As we turn the corner to spring, before the busy summer season comes along, take the opportunity now to make sure your staff training is up to date. Use this time to refocus on operations before this summer rolls out.
If you are looking for a way to keep up to date with the latest in food safety, we have you covered. Check out our SafeBites webinars, including a recent webinar on the 2022 food code changes. We have an exciting set of webinars planned for the rest of the year. In the meantime, if you have any food safety questions, we are a quick email away and would be happy to assist. Risk Nothing.
Foodborne Illness Myths & Facts
“It must have been something I ate.” That’s the typical statement when a person develops some relatively minor symptoms from food. Maybe not severe enough to go to the doctor so you choose to tough it out without medical care. Sudden onset of flu-like symptoms such as onset of stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and fever could possibly mean you are the victim of a foodborne illness. The illness is sometimes referred to as “food poisoning”, but it’s often misdiagnosed.
Don’t Compromise: Clean and Sanitize
The subject is cleaning and sanitizing. Chefs, food service directors, managers and staff try to practice safe food-handling at every turn in the kitchen. Don’t let that effort go down the drain by slacking off on the many aspects of sanitation. That includes dish and ware-washing techniques (pots, pans, equipment), and cleaning all the areas that give us that “neat as a pin” appearance in your customers eyes. Customers seldom fail to bring that soiled silverware or glass with lipstick on it to the attention of the manager or wait staff. Improperly cleaning and sanitizing of food contact equipment does allow transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to food and ultimately our customer.
The Route to Safer Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Although fruits and vegetables are one of the healthiest foods sources in our diet, we continue to have foodborne disease outbreaks of significance from produce, sometimes affecting large groups of people in multiple states because of their wide distribution. The CDC estimates that fresh produce now causes a huge number of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States. Produce needs our continued food safety efforts at the restaurant level as well as at the stages in agricultural production. Occasionally, fresh fruits and vegetables can become contaminated with harmful bacteria or viruses, such as Salmonella, E. coli 0157:H7, Norovirus, and Hepatitis A. This contamination can occur at any point from the field to our table. If eaten, contaminated fruits and vegetables can cause foodborne illness.
Be Cool, Chill Out, Refrigerate Promptly!
The Cold Chain -- Keeping perishable foods at proper cold holding temperatures (between 28°F and 41°F maximum or 0°F for frozen food) from your food producers / manufacturers to your customers has to be one of our strongest links to safe food and high quality. Sometimes that is referred to in the food industry as “maintaining the COLD CHAIN”. Any slip ups in the cold chain, and we have a weak link. Most all of our state food regulations require 41°F as a cold maximum, but colder is a “best practice” policy to maintain.
