Contamination of Food: Let’s Get Physical

Earlier this month, we began a discussion about contamination of food. Our first blog focused on chemical contamination, but in this blog, I’d like to look at physical contamination of food.

Any item which does not belong in the food product can be considered a physical contaminate, a hair, a piece of plastic or metal, or even a fake fingernail. While some physical contaminants, such as a piece of hair in your food may only be disgusting, other physical contaminants can cause serious injury to the consumer, including lacerations to the mouth and intestines, broken teeth, or can pose a serious choking hazard

When food arrives at your foodservice facility and throughout production, it is vital that you have strong controls in place to maintain the integrity of the food, limiting chances for inadvertent contamination of physical objects. 

Physical hazards were not something I generally had to deal with when I was in operations, I imagine the same can be said for many of you. I do recall one incident when we had a chicken salad sandwich returned by a customer, who found a red acrylic fingernail in their chicken salad.  When we surveyed the staff that day, we found that the salad, which was a prepackaged product, was opened that morning and none of our staff had on fake fingernails. Meaning the product had to come from the manufacturer.  Luckily, the acrylic fingernail only caused disgust and no serious injuries.

While food companies work exceedingly hard to keep their products free from physical contaminants, it does occasionally occur.  In 2021 and through January of 2021, 14 food recalls were issued in the United States due to foreign objects in food, including metal, plastic, glass, and small stones.

When food arrives at your foodservice facility and throughout production, it is vital that you have strong controls in place to maintain the integrity of the food, limiting chances for inadvertent contamination of physical objects.  Here are four tips to help you in achieving this goal:

  • Establish and monitor dress control policies, such as requiring employees to remove jewelry and wearing a hair restraint while in food production.
  • Practice preventative maintenance on production equipment and repair or replace damaged equipment and parts immediately.
  • Encourage employees to report any issues with equipment to supervisors and be sure to follow-through with corrective action. Not doing such will just cause employees to ask why they are reporting things when nothing ever gets fixed.
  • Work with a reputable pest control company who works with you and your employees in establishing a solid and effective pest control program.

Underpinning all of these is to be sure you create and sustain a culture of food safety throughout your organization. Managers and all staff should know that nothing is so important that it cannot be done with food safety in mind.  Check out our previous blog on developing this culture to make sure you operation is on the right path. Risk Nothing.

Keeping Food Safe While Serving Outdoors

This afternoon I met some friends for lunch and as I drove through our beautiful downtown area in Manhattan, KS, I noticed that many people were taking advantage of the gorgeous weather and dining outside with friends. For our local community - outdoor dining is one of the remnants of COVID that we actually have come to enjoy on beautiful days. With spring in full swing and summer just around the corner, many foodservice operations are taking advantage of the warm weather by offering outdoor dining options.

The Importance of Air Gaps in Providing Safe Food to All

Late last month, I was exploring job tasks that are important for entry-level foodservice managers to understand related to food safety.  The usual items that you would suspect were on the list were certainly included – foodborne outbreaks; temperature danger zone; physical, biological, and chemical contamination; personal hygiene and proper glove use; HACCP systems, etc. But one thing I noticed was missing that really is integral to protecting the food supply in any foodservice operation is air gaps.

Flour Safety: Don’t Let E. coli become the Secret Ingredient in your Cake.

Earlier this month, we started to see information coming out about a foodborne illness outbreak from an unlikely source – flour. As of early-April, 12 people had fallen ill, and three people had been hospitalized as a result of flour contaminated with Salmonella. While the outbreak is still in its early stages, no individuals have died because of their illness. A specific source has not yet been identified in the outbreak, but all who have fallen ill have reported eating raw batter or dough due before developing symptoms – and flour has been identified as the only common ingredient in these batters and doughs.

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.”