Food Defense Plan Resources – at just the right price…

Earlier in the month, I discussed the importance of having a solid food defense plan in place for your foodservice operation. Even if the first version of your plan is not perfect, it is a start.  Having plans down on paper will force you to think through the process and ensure the vulnerable points where opportunities exist for possible contamination within the operation are mitigated.

Often, getting started is the hardest part of developing your food defense plan. So, I thought I would compile some resources for you to utilize. There are many good resources available online. However, I often find many of the resources are focused on larger-scale food processing facilities and only a few resources focus on the retail foodservice operation. When I do come across a resource developed for retail foodservice operations, it seems they often forget about, or perhaps maybe do not fully understand, the nuances of running a smaller retail foodservice operation. With this in mind, I have developed a list of resources you might find useful, with a brief description of the resource.

 

While these resources are not perfect and they certainly will not develop your food defense plan for you, they will give you the knowledge and tools necessary to get a good start on your plan.

 

  • A Biosecurity Checklist for School Foodservice Programs: Developing a Biosecurity Management Plan: Yes, this publication is developed for schools, but before those of you who manage restaurants fly over this one, be sure to check it out. While school meal production and restaurant cook-to-order production is quite different, they have similar back-of-house processes and thus the steps to developing your food defense plans can be very similar. The checklist included in the resource is usable by all foodservice operations and can provide a good roadmap to program development and implementation.
  • Food Defense Strategies for Food Service Operators: The New York State Department of Health has put this webpage together. While it was last updated in 2018 and it looks to be even a bit older than that, the information is still current. The page includes a Food Defense Strategies brochure and a Self-assessment Checklist that are easy to walk through and understand, even for someone who is just getting started with a food defense plan.
  • FDA Food Defense Plan Builder: The Food Defense Plan Builder is a very powerful and, somewhat user friendly, computer application that you download to your desktop/laptop and will help you build your food defense plan. Before you jump into using it, please note that it was designed for full-scale food processing facilities and not retail foodservice operations, such as restaurants and schools. However, with some creative uses of the tools included within the program, you can make it work for a foodservice operation.

While these resources are not perfect and they certainly will not develop your food defense plan for you, they will give you the knowledge and tools necessary to get a good start on your plan. If you think I overlooked a resource that you have found useful, be sure to email it to me and I will update this blog or provide a list of resources in a future blog.

As we are gearing up for summer, please plan to attend the next SafeBites Webinar on July 21, 2021 at 1:00 pm. We have not yet finalized the topic, so if you have ideas, don’t hesitate to email me and let me know. I’d love to include your suggestions and/or answer the food safety questions you have. Likewise, feel free to reach out to any food safety questions you have, and we will research the answer and get back to you. Risk Nothing. 

Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Employee Health as we head into the Winter Months

Early this month, I ran across an article discussing an outbreak investigation in the Australian Capital Territory. The outbreak caused more than 200 people to fall ill and was one of the most widespread outbreak investigations in the history of the territory.  The cause was traced back to Norovirus, a virus I am sure you have heard us opine about in this blog before.

Exclusion and Restrictions: Understanding Employee Health and the Food Code

I received a call earlier in the month from a foodservice operator who suspected that one of their employees may have fallen ill and wondered if they had to send the employee home for the day.  Once I started to ask a few more questions, it became obvious that the operator wasn’t really in-tune with the food code requirements on restrictions or exclusions for employees who may not be feeling well.  Given that most operations are dealing with staff shortages currently and the fact that we are about to head into the fall and winter – when we tend to see an increase in upper respiratory and other illnesses, such as the flu - it seemed like a very timely and important topic for the blog this month.

Cross Contamination and the Surfaces that go Unnoticed

In October, I ran across a new research study published in the Journal of Food Protection in early-September.  The article explored cross contamination in consumer kitchens during meal preparation. One of the authors was a previous SafeBites presenter, Dr. Ellen Shumaker, at North Carolina State University.  Although the setting was consumer kitchens and not the commercial kitchen many of you deal with daily, the findings were very applicable to what we often see in the foodservice setting.