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.
Handling Leafy Green Salad
We have had several produce outbreaks of foodborne disease from our lettuce, spinach, and other greens in the last several years that have been devastating to the produce growers and distributors, retail grocery stores, restaurants, and consumers.
Food Packaging Safety in a Vacuum
Extending the shelf life of fresh foods has come a long way in the food industry since curing meats with salt and sugar or canning vegetables with heat processing. The food service and consumer markets needed some better visual packages to draw the eye to the freshness factor and the technology of food packaging has filled our dinner plate. Vacuum packaging and modified atmosphere packaging, shortened to “MAP”, are the terms used for the method of food packaging used every time we choose convenience over more complex scratch meal preparation. According to industry statistics, billions of packages of vacuum and MAP-packaged foods flood the marketplace today. In both modified-atmosphere and vacuum packaging, food is packaged in a pouch made of barrier film.
The Eleven Commandments of Food Safety at Your Restaurant
Lists help us remember all kinds of information. Given the list of recent national foodborne outbreaks in the news, keep repeating this list to your food service team. They are kind of like “commandments”. As a professional in a food service facility we should think of the very basic food safety concepts that every crew member should aspire to learn, even though this list may have different priorities based on your menu. The first 3 apply to anyone who serves food, from a bag of popcorn to a full course meal. As chefs or managers, if we can “set the example” by repeating good food safety practices visibly to the crew, it will help them understand how important it is to the success of your facility. Thou shalt:
The Worst Customer Complaint: Foodborne Illness
Food service managers and crew try to follow the rules of food protection. Yet, occasionally a complaint may arise and these calls take priority over all other daily crises. If you have been in the food service industry long enough, you may have gotten one of these. A customer may claim, "I think your food made me ill." These words inflict instant anxiety. If it happens, here are some next steps to think about in advance of such a claim:
