You’ve probably seen the food safety news plastered across the news before. Remember the time in 2006 that Taco Bell had to pull all of their green onions from their North American stores when they had an E coli outbreak? Their business declined dramatically in response to three cases of food borne illness. On top of that, the green onions were not even the source of poison!
Fortunately, America has always paid close attention to food safety guidelines. Many of our restaurateurs are probably already well-aware that many states require employees to pass a food safety sanitation course within a certain amount of time from the hiring date as well as get their mandatory Hepatitis vaccines.
Recent Changes in Food Safety Guidelines
According to Deloitte’s annual Consumer Food and Products Insight Survey in March of 2011, 73 percent of Americans were increasingly aware of restaurant food safety than they were five years ago. Following the survey, in April the FDA released an easier-to-use version of their website on food recall.
This was in response to the Food Safety Modernization Act that was passed under Obama’s administration on January 4, 2011. If you haven’t taken a look at the website yet, do so. It’s well worth your time if you are in the hospitality industry.
In answer to the sky-rocketing concern of food safety due to several high profile food recalls in the recent past, efforts are being made to decrease the risk of food poisoning within the packaging industry. This requires a better tracing system, with labels that can isolate the problem more efficiently.
Food Safety and the Bottom Line
Restaurateurs have pushed for this due to the bad publicity and liability that they have had in the past. Regardless of what role they actually play in the food safety, in the end the distributor usually takes the brunt of the publicity on this.
This is why it is essential that we keep up on the latest innovations in food safety news and guidelines, as well as provide continuing education programs for our employees.
Tags: food safety, food safety guidelines, food safety news, restaurant food safety
Jim Balis' Blog 
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