It's NRA Time!

So it’s that time again! Time for the 2008 National Restaurant Associations Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago and this year DayMark® Safety Systems booth will be bigger then ever. As your “Complete Safety Source,” we are at the show proving to you that we are committed to food safety, while providing solutions and savings to your business. Please be sure to check back here at daymarksafety.blogspot.com for our daily blog updates from the show.

Chef Shea - Article Series

Hi, I am very excited about my newly formed partnership with the Industry Leader in Food Safety--Daymark Safety Systems. My first encounter with Daymark was last year while preparing for the Star Chefs Culinary Congress here in NYC. I was to do a Sous Vide demonstration for attendees utilizing products from major Suppliers that aid in Sous Vide Technology. The name Daymark was brought to my attention, and I remember asking what exactly they represented. I would be using their waterproof labels for my Sous Vide Bags. What a great idea, and to think that I have been using a permanent marker all this time!

Upon finishing my Demo, I chatted briefly with the Daymark People and was very impressed with their enthusiasm toward proper food safety. They had told me that they were coming to CRU for dinner that evening. After a good few hours, a lot of food and of course a lot of wine, I gave them a tour of my kitchen. I recall them thanking me, and at the same time being worried that my kitchen area was not up to snuff.

It was shortly after their dinner at CRU that I was contacted about the proposal to collaborate with them. I couldn’t have been more flattered. I was like, yes, of course! Since our partnership has formed I have learned a ton of new Food Safety information through our partnership and look forward to a future of exciting new things to come. It has truly amazed me how many items and ideas are usable in a single unit restaurant operation. I had envisioned from the beginning that this company was primarily for the chain restaurant industry, not fine dining. I was wrong about that one.

Right now, I am preparing to attend the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago with and on behalf of Daymark. I will be there signing copies of their new book, True Kitchen Confessions, (that we have collaborated on) as well as discussing and focusing on sous vide cooking and food safety in general. The process of getting the book together was a true course in product development, learning and fun. Daymark has an item for just about each and every task possible that is kitchen related. I mean, you have to give credit where credit is due and this company really has gone the extra step in understanding what the needs of the food industry are from their stand point. I say that with fine dining and chain dining in mind. They are really the first company that I have seen that has realized that corporate and multi-unit operations are not the only ones that need attention to handling food safely and consistently.

I look forward to a long and information filled relationship with Daymark, the industry leader in food safety.

A Partnership Begins: Chef Shea Gallante

We're proud to announce a partnership with a great chef, Shea Gallante. Shea s the Executive Chef & Partner of CRU restaurant and wine bar. He will be writing the occasional article, but we're most excited about Shea joining us at the NRA (National Restaurant Association) Show in Chicago this month.

Below is Shea's very impressive Bio...

At the age of 14, I began my career with food working at a pizzeria in my hometown of Clinton Corners, NY. From there I moved on to a “Mom & Pop” Owned trattoria. By the age of 19, after attending Community College, I envisioned a lonesome and boring career in accounting. It was at this point in my life that I decided to open my own pizzeria. While independent, I was still seriously determined to expand my culinary knowledge and skills. Within the year I was accepted at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and envisioning my next dream: to work successfully in a New York City restaurant.

So there it was, upon graduation, on to my first job in New York City. It consisted of a four-hour daily commute to the City’s Coco Opera. My responsibilities had ranged from ordering product and maintaining food costs to managing a restaurant staff, a bakery and my own daily cooking duties. After one year I was happy to rise to the new position of sous-chef.

Longing to return to my native family cuisine, I began searching for the best Italian kitchen in New York. I met the godmother of Italian-American cooking, Lidia Bastianich. I also began experimenting with new techniques in my spare time. I was promoted quickly to sous-chef at the three-star Felidia, but within two years I moved on to David Bouley in 2000.


I’d spent years surrounded by food, but this was a new experience for me. David Bouley dared me to be a visionary, to imagine the end result of the dish before ever lifting my knife. For six months, I studied the complex Chef’s Tasting Menus, recreating each dish, in preparation for my promotion to sous-chef. Four months later, in 2001, I was promoted to Chef de Cuisine of Bouley. While managing Bouley’s kitchen, I explored the avant-garde techniques of the Spanish masters, and my personal style simultaneously began to emerge. A desire for innovation and new challenges motivated me to dream of my own restaurant, where I could showcase my cuisine to New York diners.

And now, today, I am delighted to be the Executive Chef & Partner of CRU. Now, at the restaurant I dreamed of, I work with an energetic and creative staff daily serving guests in a lovely dining room on lower Fifth Avenue. Each day brings fresh challenges and each evening new experiences.

But my key to success is not just what I’ve learned and what I’ve applied, it’s in the strong support of partners and a loyal team. Restaurants succeed when Vendors, Cooks, Servers and Patrons coalesce, everyone contributing what they do best.

DayMark Safety Systems provides the safety net every food service organization requires. Their vision syncs with my standard of always serving safe food. For example my menu nearly always includes the innovative preparation of food called sous vide. This process requires stringent temperature and time monitoring. DayMark knows the importance of tracking proper temperature and time limits in the kitchen and delivered the solution for correctly implementing critical documentation that makes the process work easily, effectively and safely.

That is only one isolated example. Safe operations is crucial in every step in every station for every process and DayMark Safety Systems offers the tools, services and expertise to make sure every kitchen has food safety, personal safety, facility safety and education and training.

Thank you, DayMark for allowing me to assist you with this book. I am confident that True Kitchen Confessions will bring new awareness to all members of the food service industry and is undoubtedly a huge step towards making our world a safer place to eat, work and live.

Restaurateurs expected to shape new produce-tracking initiative

Brought to you by Nations Restaurant News

NEWARK , Del. (Dec. 1) Such foodservice powerhouses as McDonald’s, Applebee’s, Sysco and U.S. Foodservice are helping to craft a new multi-industry initiative that will boost food safety by tracking produce shipments more precisely, according to organizers of the effort.

Known as the Produce Traceability Initiative, the attempt at better tracking is sponsored by the Produce Marketing Association, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association and the U.S.-based United Fresh Produce Association. Its aim is to find ways of pinpointing the sources and current locations of produce that is suspected of posing a food safety threat, perhaps because greens from the same batch were implicated in an outbreak or tested positive for a pathogen.

“It is evident that we must help drive a more comprehensive industrywide commitment to trace-back and trace-forward systems that can be used throughout the produce supply chain,” said Cathy Green, chief operating officer of the supermarket chain Food Lion LLC and chairperson of the PTI’s steering committee. “A preventative food safety system begins with a sound, whole-chain traceability system that allows us to rapidly trace product movement up and down the supply chain.”

Representatives of McDonald’s, the industry’s largest quick-service chain, and Applebee’s, the most extensive casual-dining chain, have agreed to serve on the steering committee, along with delegates from the trade’s two biggest distributors, Sysco and U.S. Foodservice. The 30-person group also comprises executives of agricultural and food-retailing companies, including The Kroger Co. and Wal-Mart. Organizers said they have invited other food-industry stakeholders to join the committee, including the National Restaurant Association and International Foodservice Distributors Association. Its first meeting is slated for Jan. 9.

The formation of steering committee action follows multiple foodborne-illness outbreaks tied to fresh produce during the past decade, including a deadly E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak in 2006 that was traced to bagged spinach.

Organizers said the steering committee’s action plan may call for the promotion of best practices up and down the produce supply chain; the establishment of timelines and goals for adoption of the safeguards; and the creation of some verification system, to instill accountability.

Activists, suppliers and restauranteurs connect at food-safety confab

Written by Peter Romeo of Nations Restaurant News.
WASHINGTON (Nov. 16) The parties that routinely square off after a food-poisoning incident came together here last month to see if they could work in concert for a safer food supply.

Called Cooperating for Food Safety, the meeting brought together such traditional adversaries as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, restaurant chains, multinational food processors, governmental regulators, produce suppliers and food-poisoning victims. It was organized by self-avowed consumer activists in collaboration with academics and members of the food industry, several of whom noted that public trust in the food supply may be at an all-time low.

“They’re skeptical of our government, which, let’s face it, has from time to time let them down,” said Linda Golodner, president emeritus of the National Consumers League advocacy group and an organizer of the event. The meeting was conceived in part to allay those fears through a broad-based push for better safety practices.

“We realize that none of us in this room can solve these issues on our own,” said Ray Goldberg, professor emeritus of Harvard Business School and another co-organizer of the CFS. “We need each other. The question is, how do we do it?”

For that reason, he said, pulling together the major proponents of food safety was an historic step.

The stated purpose of the meeting was to share effective techniques for promoting food safety. Several meat processors, for instance, described what state-of-the-art processes they use within their plants to combat bacteria.

But it was unclear how all 135 attendees could benefit from those or other best practices that were aired by a particular type of attendee. For instance, the participants included restaurant chains that don’t do their own butchering or processing.

Yet, some speakers noted, restaurateurs could still play a key role by pushing their suppliers to adopt those practices.

“I would ask that the retail and foodservice communities exert as much pressure as possible on our industry,” said Kim Gorton, president and chief operating officer of Slade Gorton & Co., a seafood importer and distributor.

Attendees also cited some safety tools that could be adapted for use in a seemingly disparate business. For instance, a produce supplier detailed how it had embraced a high-speed, sophisticated machine to detect foreign material in its greens and automatically reject it.

Because many types of fresh produce aren’t subjected to the pathogen-killing step of cooking, “we’ve got to use sophisticated technology to help — another area of collaboration, I think,” said Catherine Adams, corporate vice president of worldwide quality, food safety and nutrition for McDonald’s Corp.

Craig Wilson, vice president of food safety and quality assurance for Costco, said his company was looking at a customer-alert system that could place 5,000 calls an hour in the event of a product recall. The system sounded as if it also could be used by restaurants, meat manufacturers and distributors in the event of a foodborne illness outbreak.

Other speakers noted how all stakeholders could benefit from advances that may seem far removed from their businesses, such as innovations in animal husbandry. As several speakers noted, the procedures currently used to keep E. coli out of beef begin largely after the animal has left the ranch or farm, without any attempts to eradicate it from live cattle through vaccines or antibiotics.

“If we could find the way to control E. coli in animals, it not only has benefits for the meat industry, it has implications for produce as well,” said Carol Tucker Foreman, a distinguished fellow of the Consumer Federation of America advocacy group and an organizer of CFS.

She was apparently referring to the transfer of E. coli from cows to produce through the animal’s droppings, which can leach the pathogens into the water supplies used by farms for irrigation.

In general, speakers and attendees seemed less focused on issues that may have divided them in the past, such as safety legislation and regulation, and more on common aims, like averting a bacterial contamination. Repeatedly cited from the podium was the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak of 1993. Both an official from the chain and the mother of one of the victims, Alex Donley, were featured speakers.

A foodborne illness outbreak “could happen to anyone, and I think we all know that,” said Adams of McDonald’s. And “if one of us stubs our toe, we all feel the pain.”

And pathogens aren’t the only common foe, said Danny Wegman, chief executive of the Wegmans supermarket chain in upstate New York.

“The real enemy we face is obesity,” he said in his keynote address. “If we make the wrong decisions on food safety, our own customers are not going to eat what they should be eating. They’re not going to eat the leafy greens and vegetables.”

Wegman stressed that consumers have to be part of retailers’ efforts to combat food contamination, since they’re the ones who will be handling the food right before it is consumed. “The other group we need to work with, but are not, are the restaurant groups,” he said.

Some 14 restaurant operations were listed on the CFS attendance roster, including representatives from Potbelly Sandwich Works, Chick-fil-A, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, Levy Restaurants, Dunkin’ Brands and a local company, Clyde’s Restaurant Group. A representative of the National Council of Chain Restaurants was also cited as an attendee.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Mike Rosbach, vice president of corporate food safety and regulatory affairs for Cargill Inc. and an organizer of the meeting, acknowledged that the coordinators weren’t sure if the diverse parties in the audience would mesh. Yet the effort was lauded by a number of participants.

“It’s Washington. Any time you’ve got people with divergent viewpoints in one room, it’s a real step forward,” joked Michael Sansolo, a columnist for the retailing news provider Morning News Beat.

Participants suggested that the emerging alliance consider such matters in the future as farm-level safety practices, the ability to trace the path of a food back to its source, educating consumers and the ambitious goal of testing every food serving before it’s sold, a possibility mentioned by a processor.

Others suggested that lawmakers and regulators be informed of the stab at collaboration. “We need to let government know that we are working together,” said Bill Buckner, a senior vice president of Cargill.

Others noted that the work of an alliance, particularly the sharing of safety ideas, could alleviate the need for additional regulation.

“What do you think about a partnership going forward? Is it a go or isn’t it?” asked Nancy Donley, who formed the consumer advocacy group Safe Tables Our Priority, or STOP, after her son Alex died during the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak.

“Press on,” one of the attendees shouted from the audience. “Why do you even ask?”

Calif. operators hail new model produce program

By ALAN J. LIDDLE of Nations Restaurant News - SACRAMENTO , CALIF. (Jul. 30) —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.

Kicked off July 23, the auditing and enforcement arm puts teeth into the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement announced earlier this year. The agreement is designed to improve the safety of processed fresh greens, such as bagged lettuces, some of which have been implicated in E. coli O157:H7 contamination incidences in recent years. A consortium of agribusiness groups, with the help of California’s Department of Food and Agriculture, is behind the Sacramento-based greens marketing agreement.

“This is a step in the right direction,” said W.B. “Harry” Harrison of the 84-unit Black Angus Steakhouse chain.

“We’ve got concerned consumers,” added Harrison, director of purchasing and distribution for the Los Altos, Calif.-based chain. “Because of that, we’re asking our suppliers to do things differently.”

Harrison made those remarks during the recent annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition in Monterey, Calif., where he and other foodservice executives were updated on the progress of the greens marketing agreement.

Under the agreement, companies that ship or process fresh leafy crops sign a contract to guarantee that the farmers they deal with adhere to the food safety provisions of specified good agricultural practices, or GAPs. The penalties for noncompliance include fines and expulsion from the group. After two months of practice audits, formal compliance auditing and enforcement involving 10 state inspectors began July 23.

Asked during the PMA conference if their 1,539-unit family-dining chain expects change to come from the greens marketing agreement, officials of Spartanburg, S.C.-based Denny’s said they were “already seeing it.” During recent field inspections of some of the chain’s produce suppliers in California, Denny’s employees said they noticed new processes or procedures that they believed to have resulted from practice audits staged by inspectors for the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement.

California produces the majority of the nation’s leafy greens sold fresh but otherwise processed, such as those precut and washed and sold in bags and marketed as “ready to eat.”

Mark C. Gray, director of regional supply for Denny’s Corp., said his chain is “piggybacking” off the California marketing agreement to improve purchases from across the nation. He said Denny’s has begun asking all produce suppliers to make sure that their farms or the farms that supply them adhere to the safety practices at the core of the California agreement.

The idea that safety efforts initiated in California should be adopted elsewhere was a common theme among PMA conference speakers and attendees.

Speaker Jorge Hernandez of distributor U.S. Foodservice said he was bothered by the attitudes of some supply chain players as recently as last fall when they referred to produce safety challenges as “a California thing…or a spinach thing…or an international thing.” Hernandez, vice president of food safety and quality assurance for U.S Foodservice, said that while many recent produce contamination incidences were associated with California, it was just the beginning of wide-scale problems “unless we [industrywide] do something about it.”

Almost all of the leafy greens handling companies in California have signed the marketing agreement, said E. Scott Horsfall, chief executive of the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement. But just to make certain that all handlers, big and small, have an opportunity to take part, agreement administrators have reopened the sign-up period, he said.

Horsfall said participating companies would be permitted to use service marks or some other indication of their good standing in the program on invoices and other documents and possibly later on packaging.

“We will publicize loss of certification at our website,” he said.

PMA conference participants toured fields in the agriculturally rich Salinas Valley area of Central California, listened to educational sessions and walked through an exhibit hall of produce products. In addition to the update on the marketing order, conferencegoers heard about other grower and processor initiatives to reduce contamination problems associated with some fresh produce and restore consumer and commercial buyer confidence in those products. Among those initiatives is the new Center for Produce Safety at the University of California in Davis.

Purchasing

Your responsibility for food safety in your establishment begins long before the food arrives and is prepared. You must purchase wholesome, safe foods to meet your menu requirements. Safety at this step is primarily the responsibility of your vendors, but it’s your job to choose your vendors wisely.

Suppliers must meet federal and state health standards. They should use the HACCP system in their operations and train their employees in sanitation. Be sure to ask if they use a HACCP system.

You should also make sure that suppliers are getting their products from approved sources—ones that have been inspected and are compliance with the law. In addition, make sure your suppliers are reputable. Ask other operators about their experiences with a particular vendor.

Delivery trucks should have adequate refrigeration and freezer units, and foods should be packaged in protective, leak-proof, durable packaging. If it’s possible, inspect their warehouses and trucks. Are the trucks clean and well maintained? Are they holding products at the proper temperatures?

Also make sure your supplier is shipping quality product. Look for broken boxes, dented cans and leaks for signs of unsafe packaging.

Let vendors know up front what you expect from them. Put food-safety standards in your purchase specification agreements. Ask to see their most recent Board of Health Sanitation Reports, and tell them you will be inspecting trucks on a quarterly basis. Also ask them to deliver your products when your employees will be able to put them into storage in a proper and timely manner.

Good vendors will cooperate with your inspections and should adjust their deliv- ery schedules to avoid your busy periods so that incoming foods can be received and inspected properly.

Complex Processes

Failure to adequately control food product temperature is the one factor most commonly associated with food-borne illness. Foods prepared in large volumes or in advance for next-day service usually follow an extended process flow. These foods are likely to pass through the temperature danger zone several times. The key in managing the operational steps within the process is to minimize the time foods are at unsafe temperatures.

In some cases, a variety of foods and ingredients that require extensive employee product preparation may be part of the process. A sound food safety management system will incorporate standard operating procedures for personal hygiene
and cross-contamination prevention throughout the flow of the food.

Before you set up a management system for your operational steps, there are several factors you should consider. Multiple-step processes require proper equipment and facilities. Your equipment needs to be designed to handle the volume
of food you plan to prepare. For example, if you use a process that requires the cooling of hot food, you must provide equipment that will adequately and efficiently lower the food temperature as quickly as possible. If you find that a recipe
is too hard to safely prepare, you may want to consider purchasing pre-prepared items from a reputable source.

To assist food establishments in applying HACCP principles at the retail level, the FDA has issued a draft document entitled Managing Food Safety: A HACCP Principles Guide for Operators of Food Service, Retail Food Stores, and Other Food Establishments at the Retail Level. This document is available from the FDA and can be found on the FDA Web page at http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~ear/retail
.html.

There are seven steps in the flow of food that we will take a closer look at in regard to food safety including possible contaminates at each stage and ways to avoid contamination at each stage. In order, we’ll look at:

1. Purchasing and receiving.
2. Storing.
3. Preparing.
4. Cooking.
5. Serving and holding.
6. Cooling.
7. Reheating.

There are multiple hazards at, and specific preventative measures for, each step.

Manager’s Responsibilities

According to the Food Code, the restaurant owner and/or manager needs to ensure that a manager or supervisor is on the premises during all hours of operation. This person also must have demonstrated knowledge of food-borne illness
prevention, HACCP principles, and the Food Code requirements. The manager/supervisor needs to demonstrate this knowledge by:

• Complying with the Code.

• Being certified in food safety through an accredited program such as the ServSafe program offered through the National Restaurant Association.

• Responding correctly to the inspector’s questions

The areas of knowledge the manager/supervisor should have include:

• Describing the relationship between the prevention of food-borne disease and the personal hygiene of an employee.

• Explaining the responsibility of the manager for preventing the transmission of food-borne disease by an employee who has a disease or medical condition that may cause food-borne disease.

• Describing the symptoms associated with the diseases that are transmissible through food.

• Explaining the relationship between maintaining the time and temperature of potentially hazardous food and the prevention of food-borne illness.

• Explaining the hazards in consuming raw or undercooked meat, poultry, eggs and fish.

• Knowing the food temperatures and times required for the safe cooking of potentially hazardous food, including meat, poultry, eggs and fish.

• Stating the required temperatures and times for the safe refrigerated storage, hot holding, cooling and reheating of potentially hazardous food.

• Describing the relationship between the prevention of food-borne illness and:

– Cross-contamination.
– Hand contact with ready-to-eat-food.
– Hand washing.
– Maintaining the establishment in clean condition and good repair.

• Explaining the relationship between food safety and providing equipment that is sufficient in number and capacity, and properly designed, constructed, located, installed, operated, maintained and cleaned.

• Explaining correct procedures for cleaning and sanitizing utensils and the food-contact surfaces of equipment.

• Identifying the source of water used and measures taken to ensure that it remains protected from contamination such as providing protection from backflow and precluding the creation of cross connections.

• Identifying poisonous or toxic materials in the establishment and the procedures necessary to ensure that they are safely stored, dispensed, used and disposed of according to law.

• Identifying critical control points in the operation and explaining steps taken to ensure that the points are controlled in accordance with the requirements of the Code.

• Explaining the details of how the manager and employees comply with the HACCP plan.

• Explaining the responsibilities, rights and authorities assigned by this Code to the employees, manager and health department.

The manager is responsible for ensuring employees understand what they need to do to keep their customers safe from food-borne illnesses.

The following is a list of things the manager should do.

• Ensure operations are conducted in an establishment deemed proper by the health code. For example, if you buy your desserts from a private vendor and your local health code does not allow for desserts that are sold to the public be prepared in a private home, you need to make sure your vendor is using a space that meets the requirements of your health code.

• Make sure non-employees are not in the food preparation, storage or dishwashing areas.

• Make sure all your employees, vendors and suppliers that come into your food prep areas are complying with the Food Code requirements.

• By routinely monitoring them, make sure employees are properly washing their hands.

• Make sure employees are inspecting foods as they receive them to determine that they are from approved sources and delivered that are at the required temperatures.

• Ensure employees are properly cooking potentially hazardous foods through daily oversight of the employees’ routine monitoring of the cooking temperatures using appropriate temperature measuring devices that are properly scaled and calibrated.

• Ensure employees are using proper methods to rapidly cool potentially hazardous foods.

• Make sure that customers who order raw or partially cooked ready-to-eat foods of animal origin are informed of its hazards.

• Make sure employees are properly sanitizing equipment and utensils through routine monitoring of solution temperature and exposure time for hot water sanitizing, chemical concentration, pH, temperature, and exposure time for chemical sanitizing.

• If you have a buffet area, be sure customers are informed to use clean tableware when they return to the buffet for refills.

• Be sure employees prevent cross-contamination of ready-to-eat foods, such as salad, by properly using suitable utensils such as deli tissue, spatulas, tongs and single-use gloves.

• Make certain employees are properly trained in food safety as it relates to their assigned duties.

Knowledge

The designated person in charge who is knowledgeable about food-borne disease prevention, HACCP principles and Code requirements is prepared to recognize conditions that may contribute to food-borne illness or that otherwise fail to comply with Code requirements, and to take appropriate preventive and corrective actions.

There are many ways in which the person in charge can demonstrate competency. Many aspects of the food operation itself will reflect the competency of that person. A dialogue with the person in charge during the inspection process will also reveal whether or not that person is enabled by a clear understanding of the Code and its public health principles to follow sound food safety practices and to produce foods that are safe, wholesome, unadulterated and accurately represented.

The Food Code does not require reporting of uninfected cuts or reporting of covered, protected infected cuts/lesions/boils since it requires no bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food.

Presently there are a wide variety of industry management training and certification programs being offered by regulatory agencies, academic institutions, food companies, industry groups and third-party organizations. Most certification programs share a common desire to have the food manager certificate they issue universally recognized and accepted by others, especially by the increasing number of regulatory authorities that require food manager certification.

Certification programs vary significantly in focus and primary mission of sponsors, organizational structures, staff resources, revenue sources, testing mechanisms, policies toward applicants and employers of food managers, and policies pertaining to such things as public information, criteria for maintaining certifi-cation and the need for recertification. Where courses are offered, they vary in scope, content, depth and duration, quality of instructional materials, qualifications of instructors, and instructional approach (classroom, on-the-job, PC-based, home study, etc.). Where testing is a program component, varying degrees of attention are given to test construction and test administration as they relate to nationally accepted standards (reliability, validity, job analysis, subject weighting, cut scores, test security, etc.).

Responsibility

Designation of a person in charge during all hours of operation ensures the continuous presence of someone who is responsible for monitoring and managing all food establishment operations and who is authorized to take actions to ensure that the Code’s objectives are fulfilled. During the day-to-day operation of a food establishment, a person who is immediately available and knowledgeable in both operational and Code requirements is needed to respond to questions and concerns and to resolve problems.

Food and Drug Administration

The federal agency whose work this book focuses on is the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA touches the lives of virtually every American every day. It is the FDA’s job to see that the food we eat is safe and wholesome, the cosmetics we use won’t hurt us, the medicines and medical devices we use are safe and effective, and that radiation-emitting products such as microwave ovens won’t do us harm. Food and drugs for pets and farm animals also come under FDA scrutiny. The FDA also ensures that all of these products are labeled truthfully with the information that people need to use them properly.

The FDA is one of our nation’s oldest consumer protection agencies. Its approximately 9,000 employees monitor the manufacture, import, transport, storage and sale of about $1 trillion worth of products each year. It does that at a cost to the
taxpayer of about $3 per person.

First and foremost, the FDA is a public health agency, charged with protecting American consumers by enforcing the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and several related public health laws. To carry out this mandate of consumer protection, the FDA has some 1,100 investigators and inspectors who cover the country’s almost 95,000 FDA-regulated businesses. These employees are located in district and local offices in 157 cities across the country.

These investigators and inspectors visit more than 15,000 facilities a year, seeing that products are made right and labeled truthfully. As part of their inspections, they collect about 80,000 domestic and imported product samples for examination by FDA scientists or for label checks.

If a company is found violating any of the laws that the FDA enforces, the FDA can encourage the firm to voluntarily correct the problem or to recall a faulty product from the market. A recall is generally the fastest and most effective way to protect the public from an unsafe product.

When a company can’t or won’t correct a public health problem with one of its products voluntarily, the FDA has legal sanctions it can bring to bear. The agency can go to court to force a company to stop selling a product and to have items already produced seized and destroyed. When warranted, criminal penalties—including prison sentences—are sought against manufacturers and distributors.

About 3,000 products a year are found to be unfit for consumers and are withdrawn from the marketplace, either by voluntary recall or by court-ordered seizure. In addition, about 30,000 import shipments a year are detained at the port of entry because the goods appear to be unacceptable.

The FDA publishes the Food Code, a model that assists food control jurisdictions at all levels of government by providing them with a scientifically sound technical and legal basis for regulating the retail and food service segment of the industry. Local, state, tribal and federal regulators use the FDA Food Code as a model to develop or update their own food safety rules and to be consistent with national food regulatory policy. The FDA’s Food Code is intended to help state health
departments develop regulations for a food service inspection program. The Food Code is not actual law, it is basically the FDA’s advice on how to regulate the food system to ensure safety. Some states may adopt the Code in its entirety and others may just use it as a basis for their own code.

It also serves as a reference of best practices for the retail and food service industries (restaurants, grocery stores and institutions such as nursing homes) on how to prevent food-borne illness. Many of the over one million retail and food service establishments apply Food Code provisions to their own operations.

Between 1993 and 2001, the Food Code was issued, in its current format, every two years. With the support of the Conference for Food Protection, the FDA has decided to move to a four-year interval between complete Food Code revisions.

The next complete revision of the Food Code will be published in 2005. During the four-year interim period, a Food Code Supplement that updates, modifies or clarifies certain provisions is being made available.

The main areas on which the Food Code focuses are:

• Food handling and food preparation.
• Personnel.
• Equipment and utensils.
• Cleaning and sanitizing.
• Services (water, sewage, plumbing, waste disposal and pest management).
• Construction and maintenance.
• Compliance procedures.

The Food Code addresses controls for risk factors and establishes five key public health interventions to protect consumer health. Specifically, these interventions are:

• Demonstration of knowledge.
• Employee health controls.
• Controlling hands as a vehicle of contamination.
• Time and temperature parameters for controlling pathogens.
• Consumer advisory.

Consider also the following characteristics that retail food establishments share.

The industry has a wide range of employee resources, from highly trained executive chefs to entry-level front-line employees. Employees may have a broad range of educational levels and communication skills. It may be difficult to conduct in-house training and to maintain a trained staff because employees may speak different languages or there may be high employee turnover.

Many establishments are start-up businesses operating without benefit of a large corporate support structure and having a relatively low profit margin and perhaps less capital to work with than other segments of the food industry.

There is an almost endless number of production techniques, products, menu items and ingredients used. Suppliers, ingredients, menu items or specifications may change frequently.

Verification and Documentation of Correction

After observing at the time of inspection a correction of a critical violation or deviation, the health department will enter the violation and information about the corrective action on the inspection report.

After receiving notification that the permit holder has corrected a critical violation or HACCP plan deviation, or at the end of the specified period of time, the health department will verify correction of the violation, document the information on an inspection report, and enter the report in the health department’s records.

The permit holder must correct noncritical violations by a date and time agreed to or specified by the health department but no later than 90 calendar days after the inspection. (The health department may approve a compliance schedule that
extends beyond these time limits if a written schedule of compliance is submitted by the permit holder and no health hazard exists or will result from allowing an extended schedule for compliance.)

NRA show panel calls for tighter safety regulation of produce

By PETER ROMEO of Nations Restaurant News

CHICAGO (Jun. 11) —The foodservice industry will suffer more disasters like last year’s contaminations of spinach and lettuce unless restaurateurs adopt changes in the way produce is farmed, said a panel of food safety experts at the National Restaurant Association Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show.

And forcing those changes, the experts cautioned during an educational session on supply-chain management, is going to require a strong stomach, some field dirt on operators’ shoes, and pushback that ripples all the way down to how pickers handle their pets.

“You have to push it back to the source,” said David Parsley, senior vice president of supply chain management for Applebee’s International. “You can’t just focus on the restaurant.”

He and his fellow panelists described field-level conditions that pose a dire threat to an industry that’s serving more and more fresh produce.

Tom Chestnut of the safety organization NSF International even warned the audience to brace itself before showing several slides that depicted what he had encountered during a visit to Salinas, Calif., some three or four weeks earlier. Clearly visible in the close-ups of spinach growing in the fields were feces from animals raised by the farm hands.

“You may notice that there are no trees in the pictures,” he said before pointing out mounds of green onions in the fields. The pickers’ dogs, he delicately explained, sometimes used piles of produce as if they were trees.

Other grim travelogues were offered by other presenters, who stressed how important it is for buyers to get into the fields and see the conditions for themselves.

“It’s not a lettuce issue, it’s not a California issue, it is a food safety issue,” said Jorge Hernandez, vice president of food safety and quality insurance for distribution giant U.S. Foodservice. “Do not rely on the government for the safety of your food.”

Instead, he and others stressed, push back.

“Go into the field and ask questions,” Chestnut said.

A single unit or small chain may not be able to wield the leverage of an Applebee’s, he said, but they “can sure ask their distributors the important questions.” That might in turn prompt the major distributors to check the practices of their suppliers, with the pressure cascading down to the farms.

“In the fresh-cut industry, we have no kill step,” said Courtney Parker of the Fresh Express bagged-salad company, referring to the cooking stage that destroys most pathogens in meat. “So the best we can do is prevention.”

The key, Parsley suggested, is no longer viewing food safety as a discipline that extends from a distributor’s truck to a guest’s fork. The responsibility has to extend back to the field.

“I’ve had a lot of [quality assurance] people say ‘supply chain’ is synonymous with ‘purchasing.’ That’s not true,” he said, noting that the overriding goal of supply-chain management at Applebee’s is food safety.

Viewing the procurement process as a food safety matter can conflict with the usual mission of cutting costs as much as possible, the presenters acknowledged. But “this is not the time to be price-shopping,” Chestnut said. “This is the time to know your supplier.”

“Do not let price dictate the safety of your food,” Hernandez agreed. Otherwise, he said, the results could be disastrous for the industry.

“Product safety [concern] is not going to go away,” Hernandez said. “What we’re seeing today is just the tip of the iceberg. This is going to happen more and more and more.”

Ceasing Operations and Reporting

An owner or permit holder must immediately discontinue operations and notify the health department if an imminent health hazard may exist because of an emergency such as a fire, flood, extended interruption of electrical or water service, sewage backup, misuse of poisonous or toxic materials, the onset of an apparent food-borne illness outbreak, gross unsanitary occurrence or condition, or other circumstance that may endanger public health.

If operations are discontinued because of an imminent health hazard, the establishment cannot reopen unless the owner has approval from the health department to resume operations.

At the time of an inspection, the establishment owner must correct a critical violation of the Food Code and implement corrective actions for a HACCP plan provision that is not in compliance with its critical limit.

Considering the nature of the potential hazard involved and the complexity of the corrective action needed, the health department may agree to or specify a longer time frame, not to exceed ten calendar days after the inspection, for the permit
holder to correct critical Food Code violations or HACCP plan deviations.

Issuing Report and Obtaining Acknowledgment of Receipt

At the conclusion of the inspection, the health department official will provide a copy of the completed inspection report and the notice to correct violations to the person in charge and request a signed acknowledgment of receipt.

If the person in charge refuses to sign the report, the health department will:

1. Inform the person who declines to sign an acknowledgment of receipt of inspectional findings that:

• An acknowledgment of receipt is not an agreement with findings.

• Refusal to sign an acknowledgment of receipt will not affect the permit holder’s obligation to correct the violations noted in the inspection report within the time frames specified.

• A refusal to sign an acknowledgment of receipt is noted in the inspection report and conveyed to the health department’s historical record for the food establishment.

2. Make a final request that the person in charge sign an acknowledgment receipt of inspectional findings.

The health department will treat the inspection report as a public document and make it available for disclosure to someone who requests it.

Documenting Information and Observations

The health department official shall document the following on an inspection report form: • Administrative information about the establishment’s legal identity, street and mailing addresses, type of establishment and operation, inspection date, and other information such as type of water supply and sewage disposal, status of the permit, and personnel certificates that may be required.

• Specific factual observations of violative conditions or other deviations from the Food Code that require correction by the permit holder, including:

1. Failure of the person in charge to demonstrate the knowledge of foodborne illness prevention and the application of HACCP principles.

2. Failure of employees and the person in charge to demonstrate their knowledge of their responsibility to report a disease or medical condition.

3. Nonconformance with critical items of the Food Code.

4. Failure of the appropriate employees to demonstrate their knowledge of, and ability to perform in accordance with, the procedural, monitoring, verification and corrective action practices required by the health department.

5. Failure of the person in charge to provide records required by the health department for determining conformance with a HACCP plan.

6. Nonconformance with critical limits of a HACCP plan.

The health department official also shall specify on the inspection report form the time frame for correction of the violations.

Inspection And Correction of Violation

The health department will inspect a food operation at least once every six months. It may increase the interval between inspections beyond six months if: • The food establishment is fully operating under an approved and validated HACCP (pronounced hassip) plan. • The food establishment is assigned a less frequent inspection frequency based on a written risk-based inspection schedule that is being uniformly applied throughout the jurisdiction and at least once every six months if the establishment is contacted by telephone or other means by the health department to ensure that the establishment manager and the nature of
food operation have not changed.

• The establishment’s operation involves only coffee service and other unpackaged or prepackaged food that is not potentially hazardous such as carbonated beverages and snack food such as chips, nuts, popcorn and pretzels.

The health department may conduct more frequent inspections based upon its assessment of a food operation’s history of compliance and the establishment’s potential as a vector of food-borne illness by evaluating:

• Past performance, for nonconformance with critical Food Code or HACCP plan requirements.

• Past performance, for numerous or repeat violations of noncritical Food Code or HACCP plan requirements.

• Past performance, for complaints investigated and found to be valid.

• The hazards associated with the particular foods that are prepared, stored or served.

• The type of operation including the methods and extent of food storage, preparation and service.

• The number of people served.

• Whether the population served is a highly susceptible population.

Access—Reasonable Times After Due Notice

After the health department presents official credentials and provides notice of the purpose of and an intent to conduct an inspection, the person that is in charge must allow the health department official to determine if the establishment is in compliance with the Food Code by allowing access to the establishment, allowing inspection, and providing information and records specified in the Code and to which the health department is entitled according to law. This access must be given during the food establishment’s hours of operation and other reasonable times.

If a person denies access to the health department, the department official shall inform the person that:

1. The permit holder is required to allow access to the health department.
2. Access is a condition of the acceptance and retention of a food establishment permit to operate.
3. An order issued by the appropriate authority allowing access, hereinafter referred to as an inspection order, may be obtained according to the law.

After doing this the official will make one final request for access.

If after the health department official presents credentials and provides notice as specified above, explains the authority upon which access is requested, and makes a final request for access, the person in charge continues to refuse access, the health department official shall provide details of the denial of access on an inspection report form.

If denied access for an authorized purpose and after complying with the above actions, the health department may issue, or apply for the issuance of, an inspection order to gain access.

The Health Department

It’s a good idea to work closely with your local health department. In large cities the health department is usually the city health department. In smaller towns you may work with the county or state health department. Many food service managers view their local health department as the enemy, thinking only of the inspections conducted by the department. However, the health department is a good source of information for food service managers. For example, your local health department can provide you with a copy of the food safety regulations and standards that apply to your type of operation.

The health department is also responsible for issuing food service permits. (You cannot operate a food service establishment without a valid permit issued by your local authority.)

You should apply for the permit long before you actually open because the permit process does take some time. Often the health department might want to see blueprints and specs if you are opening a new building or doing extensive remodeling.

The number of inspections conducted by health departments will vary dependent on the risk a food establishment poses. In determining how many times a facility will be inspected a year, the health department authorities will look at the facility’s sanitation history, number of meals served, number of potentially hazardous items on the menu, and number of critical violations that have been documented. Low-risk operations are generally inspected every six months. Higher-risk operations may be inspected four or more times a year.