Bright Green March 2017 Newsletter: The Future of Food Safety

According to CDC estimates, food borne illness is responsible for 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3000 deaths each year.  Impact on the US economy is estimated at $75 billion. (President’s FY 2017 Budget Request: Key Investments for Implementing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), Feb 22, 2016)

Five of the seven rules of the Food Safety Modernization Act have become rules and $104 million has been approved as a budget to implement the new changes.  What all of this means in plain English is the scrutiny under which we operate in the food service industry is going to continue to increase.  Much of the new legislation is going to focus on produce, especially imported produce. To the credit of the FDA, they proposed major changes in 2013 which they significantly re-wrote after visits to farms and food service companies.  

Sabra hummus is the latest in a long line of well-known companies with food safety recalls.  Blue Bell ice cream has recently had two listeria-related recalls. Chipotle restaurants, once a darling of the industry, continues to struggle with the fallout in consumer trust from a string of food borne illnesses.  

PRODUCE
Although the 2009 food code was adopted by the state of Florida in 2013, enforcement of the code at the inspector level has been slow and often parts of the code are not enforced at all.  I have it on rather good authority that the FDA will issue a new food code in 2017, produce handling will be at the center of those changes.   
In the coming years, you will almost certainly see a push in two areas with respect to produce.
1) Separation of raw/unwashed produce from ready-to-eat produce.  These provisions are already in the code and I have seen them enforced sporadically but you can be sure inspectors will soon be checking. With all the recent focus on imported produce and increased sampling of produce by the FDA you can be sure changes are in the wind.
2) Produce wash: Another near-certainty in coming years will be the mandatory use of a chemical wash on produce either at the distributor level or at the store level.  These chemicals have been on the market for decades but are not widely used.  Look for a push for this as the FDA wraps up their produce sampling program and implements the FSMA.  If you google "food safety updates" the first several pages are nearly all produce related.

  
MONEY SAVING TIP - AIR BALANCE
Air balance is an often overlooked "easy money" solution.  If you have a monthly HVAC maintenance plan, your maintenance company should be checking this each time they visit.  Like all maintenance companies, they will "respect what you inspect."  Most do a poor job.  
Nearly all food service facilities have "make up air." Make up air is designed to bring air back into the building to replace the air taken out by your hoods. Testing your air balance is easy.  If you open one of the doors and get a huge rush of air in either direction, your air balance is off.  Stand at your front door with a paper napkin, crack the door slightly and see what the napkin does, it will move slightly.  If it moves a lot in one direction or another, you have an air balance problem. If the napkin flutters inward, you have negative pressure and each time you open the door the outside air comes rushing in.  During the Florida summer, the last thing you need is to bring 95° humid air into your building.  
Conversely, if you have positive pressure (the napkin flutters outward) then you push your air conditioning out the door into the world or your heat in the winter. Bottom line, air balance is easy to check and easy to fix, just make sure you are holding your vendors accountable.  How much can you save each month? More than enough to pay for Bright Green Q.A.     

PEOPLE
Ask any restaurateur his/her biggest challenge, it's people.  Generational changes in work ethic, minimum wage hikes, payroll tax hikes, ACA compliance costs, and a decrease in the number of people willing to work in our industry have all contributed to a serious shortage of employees, particularly engaged, caring employees.  
To a person, our brains crave education, challenges, and stimulation.  We want to learn.  My younger staff members used to marvel at the amount of useless information in my head.  In a game of trivia, they have no chance against me. The reason for this is simple: The era in which I was educated required it. There were no handheld devices where anything and everything could be researched in a matter of seconds.  The younger generation has no need to memorize facts, figures, and people, they have instant access to nearly every expert on the planet.
The best way to have employees is to keep the ones you already have, how do you do that?
Education.
Make sure they learn, teach them new things, make them into experts.  Become more than a J-O-B.  Our number one goal at Bright Green Q.A. is better results through education.    

YELP  

Local communities now have the option of adding health inspections to your YELP page.  Many, but not all restaurants' inspections are posted on the home page next to the menu.  This continues the trend of health and sanitation being front and center, this trend will only intensify in the coming years as information becomes more easily available.  The last thing you want to see when someone visits your YELP page is "Fail."  
Now more than ever, your guests have the ability to see "behind the curtain" to what is really going on in your kitchen.  Those businesses that do consistently great work will have a tremendous competitive advantage over those who do not.