Is Implementing a Color-Coded Food Safety Plan Right for your Operation?
Foodborne pathogens are by far the most prevalent cause of foodborne illness in the United States and across the world. There are 31 known agents that cause foodborne illnesses, and more that are unspecified or yet undiscovered – remember, E. Coli 0157:H7 wasn’t identified until the early-1980s. It is estimated each year, 48 million illnesses occur because of these known and unknown pathogens, resulting in over 3,000 deaths.
One of the main causes of pathogenic contamination is often cross contamination, which is the transfer of harmful bacteria from one person, objective, or item to another. For example, a cook doesn’t wash their hands thoroughly after handling raw chicken and cutting romaine lettuce. While many of you in foodservice are aware of the color-coding food safety systems in place in many foodservice and food production operations, last month I had received a question about these systems, so I wanted to take a bit to discuss these in the blog. In the foodservice world, we are not as able to color-code and sperate things via zones as well as our counterparts in food processing plants; the truth is that all foodservice operations would benefit by implementing and utilizing a color-coded system for food preparation.
The typical color-coding system would involve having different knives, cutting boards, utensils, and even storage containers for different types of food items. The system should be designed to what is best for your operation, but the typical system involves using red for raw meat, yellow for raw poultry, blue for seafood, green for produce, grey for cooked protein, and white for dairy and bread. There is now a purple color added to the mix to help alleviate cross contact issues related to allergens.
Having a strong color-coding system in your operation can help employees to visually identify food safety issues during production…and supervisors can easily scan the work area to denote possible cross contamination issues.
Having a strong color-coding system in your operation can help employees to visually identify food safety issues during production. Not only can this be a benefit for employees, but supervisors can easily scan the work area to denote possible cross contamination issues that may be present during any given point in product. However, a few key items must be in place. First, employees must be trained to know which color goes with which items and this must be reinforced by appropriate signage and effective managerial control. Recently, I was in a foodservice operation where they had all the colors available to implement a strong color-coded system, but sadly I don’t think the managers nor employees gave any thought to how the colors were intended to be used. Yellow was being used for produce, green for raw meat, and purple for dairy. No one was trained on why the color-coded items were purchased (assuming they were purchased for this reason and not just to have different colored cutting boards, knives, and storage containers). Second, be sure to have enough of each item to meet the demands of your operation. If you intend to have green utilized for only produce, make sure you have enough in stock to meet the demands of your employees. In the course of a typical day of production, your employees will intend to use the correct item, but when under stress to get food out to the guest, safety will be pushed aside if what they need is not present and you don’t have a strong food safety culture.
When developing your color-coded plan, don’t forget to explore your glove options and build these into your plan. FoodHandler has several different color options available in our Thinsense™ line, including clear, black, blue, pink, and coming soon, white.
Keep an eye out for the release of our second SafeBites Webinar of 2022 in the coming weeks. We hope you like the new on-demand only option with the Webinars. If you have any questions as you watch them, be sure to follow-up with me via email. Risk Nothing.
Food Recalls: Another Important Reason to Have a Sound Traceability Program in your Foodservice Operation
Earlier in the month, I discussed a bit about the proposed traceability rules that may be coming out soon. One result of implementing the proposed rule and improving overall food traceability in your operation is the ability of those in the food chain to quickly identify and pull product involved in a food recall.
Food Traceability in Foodservice Operations: An Essential, and Soon-to-be Required, Component of your Food Safety Plan
In June, I discussed the importance of having a solid food defense plan, and I provided you some resources for developing or strengthening your food defense plan. As I was writing those blogs, my mind kept turning toward food traceability. While they are distinctly different concepts, food traceability goes hand-in-hand with a food defense program. I would argue for your food defense plan to be effective, you must have an effective internal food traceability program, where you can trace the product back to the supplier (backward traceability), but also be able to trace the product from the supplier to the guest who was served the product (forward traceability).
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.
Don’t Turn a Blind Eye to Your Food Defense Practices
Late last week, as I mindlessly scrolled through Twitter, I ran across a Tweet suggesting the #IceCreamChallenge from summer 2019 was the real cause of the Coronavirus spread. Of course, the Tweet was made tongue in cheek, but it did cause me to reflect on that challenge, which had a short life on social media in the summer of 2019.
