The Importance of Food Safety Education
In my first blog this month, I mentioned that it was National Food Safety Education month. This is an important time of year to remind ourselves, and our teams, about why food safety is so important. Each year in the United States, 48 million people will fall ill, 128,000 will be hospitalized, and 3,000 will die from a foodborne illness. For those of you who, like me, live and breathe food safety, these are common statistics. I often don’t repeat these statistics because I take for granted that everyone knows them. Perhaps this is not always the case, and they certainly bear repeating during the month designated to recognize the importance of food safety education.
Ponder the above statistics for a bit. Forty-eight million people …. that sounds somewhat incomprehensible. When you consider that there are 328.2 million people in the US (as of 2019, anyway), one in every six or seven Americans will suffer from a foodborne illness this year. That number is staggering to me. Especially when you consider that most foodborne illnesses could have been resolved with proper food handling. This is why food safety education is so important. Most of our foodborne illness issues could be resolved with proper handling of food. This is the key reason why the Food Code requires that a person in charge within your operation should be a certified food protection manager.
If we ever expect a manager, employee, etc. to change their food safety behavior, we must lay the foundation. That foundation begins with knowledge.
It is no secret that my research area has been encouraging food safe behaviors among employees. Some of my colleagues and my earliest work showed that there was little connection between knowledge of food safety (i.e., passing a food safety certification exam) and actual behaviors on the job. I am not the only one to highlight that in my research, several authors have also found similar results. So, I am often asked why I am so supportive of food safety education, training, and certification. Simply put, if we expect a manager, employee, etc. to change their food safety behavior, we must lay the foundation. That foundation begins with knowledge. Even though the connection between knowledge and behavior is weak (and this is true across many, many different facets of our lives, not just food safety), if we want our employees (or ourselves) to change behavior, we must know what the correct behavior is. Only then can we begin to change behavior, even if that change is slow and sometimes arduous.
Next month, I’d like to highlight some of the programs available to you to meet this important food code requirement. Many people fall back to the ServSafe program administered by the National Restaurant Association, but there are other options available, too. So be sure to check in and find out what they are.
We do hope you are able to join us this afternoon at 1:00 pm for our September SafeBites Webinar, entitled Using Stories to Change Behaviors of Foodservice Employees. It is not too late to sign-up, and if you happened to miss it – we archive all our content so you can watch on-demand.
In closing, let this month be a yearly reminder to you and your team about the importance of staying up to date with food safety knowledge. Make a vow to improve one food safety-related behavior in your operation. I think it was Confucius who said, “the man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” Risk Nothing.
Evaluating Food Safety
One of the suggestions I made in the last blog was to assess the food safety culture in your organization by observing the food handling techniques of workers. Let’s explore that some more. You can do an overall assessment or you can hone in on specific areas of the operation, such as production or cleaning practices. Remember, when the environmental health inspector visits your operation, he/she just gets a snapshot of what is going on in your operation on that particular day at that specific time. You are there nearly every day, so you have a much better understanding on what really happens in your operation.
September is National Food Safety Month: The Future of Food Safety
Each September we recognize the importance of food safety every day in our operations by celebrating National Food Safety Month. This year’s theme, The Future of Food Safety, emphasizes the changing environment in which foodservice operates. Each week of September has a unique focus:
September is Food Safety Education Month: The Culture of Food Safety
Developing a culture of food safety is important for any foodservice operation. You may be wondering--just what is a culture of food safety? Let’s start talking about it by first defining what is meant by culture. When you look culture up in the dictionary, you will see terms such as shared knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes, and meanings; a way of life; patterns of behavior; learned behavior of a group of people; and transmitted from generation to generation. I think these descriptors provide good insight into the meaning of a culture of food safety. You can also think about where you grew up, and a vision of culture comes. For example, I grew up in rural Oklahoma, graduating in the 1970’s with a class of 24 students. My culture instilled in me an appreciation for rural life, hard work, and independence. As I grow older, I realize I haven’t changed very much from my early years, even though I have completed a PhD, lived a lot of places, and traveled throughout the world!
Produce Safety: Special Considerations
In our last blog, I talked about general produce safety. Today, I want to talk about some special products—melons, tomatoes, leafy greens, and sprouts. These are all foods that have a history of bacterial contamination leading to foodborne illness. I also want to discuss salad bars because they have some special risks.
