The markets we service are becoming more demanding and more knowledgeable when it comes to food safety. Consumers are selecting where to eat and shop based on their perception of how well restaurants and supermarkets are run and how clean they appear. Health departments are rapidly increasing their standards to meet public pressures, resulting in more inspections, more in-store postings of inspection scores and more public reporting via the Internet. The good news is that our industry does take food safety very seriously, and we are increasing resources daily to ensure the right programs are in place.

The following five articles will assist you in dealing with
some of the important issues facing our industry.

Food Safety . . .The 90% Rule   by Christopher Meier, AVP Operations
"Stay focused on what causes 90% of the issues in food safety". For years we have focused on Temperature Control, Personal Hygiene and Cross Contamination. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most common causes of foodborne illness are: Inadequate Cooling and Cold Holding, Preparing Food Too Far Ahead of Service, Inadequate Reheating, Inadequate Hot Holding, Poor Personal Hygiene or Infected Personnel and Contaminated Raw Foods & Ingredients. Many restaurants orient their food safety systems and training around these 90% issues which is a great start. But upon further review, these areas represent very broad categories and should be drilled down to smaller increments. For example let’s take a look at Inadequate Cooling and Cold Holding. Maximum training and evaluation value is gained by breaking this issue into two parts: 1) Improper Cooling and 2) Improper Cold Holding. Admittedly, both utilize refrigeration, but they represent completely different processes to the operator. Combining them makes it impossible to identify what causes the true problem, where to take action and what training systems are required. In the restaurant industry, we typically see improper cold holding three times as often as improper cooling.		Now let’s take a look at Personal Hygiene and Infected Personnel. We recommend breaking this category down into three separate areas: Personal Hygiene Employee Health Hand Washing & Glove Usage If we drill down on one area: Hand Washing & Glove Usage, we find that there are eight evaluation zones: Proper Handwashing Proper Gloving Sufficient number of sinks in kitchen Handwashing sinks accessible Handwashing sink used only for handwashing Handwashing sinks are kept clean Soap available at all handwashing sinks Single use towels or air dryers available And for each evaluation zone there are another 8-10 training areas including: Not washing hands upon re-entering the kitchen Not washing hands after using the restroom Not washing hands before returning to food prep after change in duties Not washing hands after handling money and starting food prep		Using only hand sanitizer to wash hands Not using soap while washing hands Not washing hands after coughing/sneezing into hands Wiping hands on sanitized towel in place of handwashing Drying hands on towel or clothes Not washing hands after touching face, hair, body or other people Not washing hands after handling garbage, dirty dishes or cleaning tasks The 90% rule is very important, and staying focused on Temperature Control, Personal Hygiene and Cross Contamination is still key. But designing a food safety system that drills down to actionable and measurable zones where you can evaluate the system, train employees and measure results is equally important.

Make Risk Management a Profit Center
by Steve Hall, Director, Operations

Too often injuries to workers or customers in the food service industry are considered unavoidable and inherent to the process of serving customers. The average foodservice facility will experience up to 10 incidents per year with an average claim amount ranging from $1,000 - $3,000, not including lost time,
OSHA citations, decreased morale or bad publicity.

Imagine the possibilities if your company could realize an improvement of one less injury per facility.

What would that mean to your company’s bottom line? If an organization of 500 facilities reduced their incidents by one per location, that’s a payback of one million dollars in bottom line savings!

 Corporate Risk Management presents a very real opportunity to profit in today’s marketplace. Risk
   Management programs typically include training programs and suitable personal protective equipment
   to help inform and protect employees, but sometimes shortcuts are taken when executing these practices.
Here’s where evaluating the system can help. EcoSure’s Certified Specialists can assess each of
your locations efficiently to determine where safety opportunities exist, provide actionable
information to your field staff and/or safety vendors who can correct the issues and provide a
tracking system that allows for monitoring the corrective action process. This Employee/Customer
Safety program provides the ability to realize significant bottom-line savings through the
reduction of injuries.