The global shortage of single-use gloves due to the demands of the coronavirus will continue well into 2021. Malaysia, the leading manufacturer of single-use gloves, is supported by its country’s glove manufacturers body, Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (MARGMA), which recently stated that, while glove prices have soared and demand is overwhelming, the industry’s supply is fully booked until early 2021.

MARGMA is warning buyers to be vigilant to fraudulent agents and distributors offering what it calls “ridiculous” prices with a promise to cut short delivery time. The shortage is also causing a flood of poor and reject quality gloves to hit the market, causing potential food safety implications.

Single-use gloves should provide the wearer with a barrier protection against food and pathogens, thereby playing an important role in the prevention of cross-contamination. Within the food industry, however, pre-COVID-19 scientific data implicate glove cross-contamination in 16% of all foodborne illness cases in the U.S. and, as more poor quality gloves flood the market, food safety risks will likely increase.

Here are several recommendations to mitigate the current and future food safety and supply chain risks of single-use gloves.

Ensure Gloves Are Compliant for Food Handling

FDA-compliant food contact gloves must consist of “substances generally recognized as safe for use in food or food packaging.” However, letters of compliance and guarantee on the glove submitted for testing are not necessarily for the glove you have purchased.

There are few controls required for glove manufacturing relating to the reliability and consistency of raw materials, manufacturing processes, and factory compliance. In addition, glove manufacturers are able to achieve FDA certification and then alter manufacturing and hygiene practices and raw materials to save costs. Cheap raw materials lower glove strength and durability, increasing the rate of glove failures (ripping), and can contain toxic compounds that can migrate to glove users’ skin and food products.

These cost-saving alternatives are more prevalent than ever. Pressure to meet manufacturing demand has also led to the repacking of reject quality gloves, which previously were either disposed of or recycled for raw materials.

Purchase from a reputable supplier with quality systems in place to ensure glove quality consistency and FDA-compliant requirements.

Purchase with Quality, Not Cost, in Mind

Purchasing decisions made on glove cost alone can threaten food safety programs. As glove suppliers let their customers down, either due to being unprepared for the sudden increase in demand or upselling to other buyers at greater margins, sourcing a quality glove is challenging, yet paramount for food safety.

Several glove types are available for food handling, each with varying degrees of barrier protection. The most commonly used are vinyl gloves due to their cheap price point. Vinyl gloves, however, have limited durability and rip and puncture easily compared to nitrile, increasing the risk of bacterial and viral cross-contamination. Vinyl gloves are not a food-safe choice.

Price should not be the only determining factor for glove selection; scientifically based food-safe selection is essential. Purchase quality nitrile gloves to help protect against pathogen cross-contamination and, with reduced usage, you will not necessarily increase your overall glove costs per month.

Labor Violations in Glove Manufacturing

Labor rights abuse in disposable glove manufacturing has been regularly reported for many years. With added pressure on glove manufacturers to meet the current increase in demand, reports of labor abuse and exploitation against some of the biggest global manufacturers are making news again.

Because of forced labor concerns, the U.S. banned the import of surgical gloves from two subsidiaries of the world’s largest glove manufacturer, as of July 15, 2020. The ban affects about half of the company’s sales to the United States, products which will likely be sent to countries without anti-slavery laws.

Consumers and businesses have the power to change supply chain violations with their purchasing. Ask for firsthand proof and partner with a fully transparent disposable glove supplier to protect your brand.

The current challenges in the glove supply chain have the potential to affect food safety. Sourcing a truly food-compliant glove is challenging but possible. Partnering with an established and trusted supplier will help to mitigate the current glove supply chain challenges mentioned in this article

Ronaldson is vice president of marketing at Eagle Protect, a specialist supplier of single-use gloves and protective clothing for the food industry. Reach her at lynda@eagleprotect.com.

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FDA’s National Retail Food Team releases new posters that focus on proper holding practices for cold prepared food and adequate cooking temperatures for turkey and ground beef. These posters were created as part of the FDA’s efforts to enhance food safety training at the retail level by helping employees better understand their role in preventing foodborne illnesses, particularly among vulnerable populations.

The following information is being conveyed:

• The Importance of Date Marking posters demonstrate the significance of the proper retention period for prepared foods as indicated in the Food Code, §3-501.17 Ready-to-Eat, Time/Temperature Control for Safety Food, Date Marking. Date marking in retail food settings is the mechanism by which the Food Code requires active managerial control of the temperature and time combinations for cold holding as a way to reduce or eliminate the growth and spread of foodborne illness causing bacteria.
• Adequate Cooking Temperature posters explain the importance of bringing poultry (whole and ground) and ground beef to the correct temperature as a way to reduce or eliminate foodborne illness-causing bacteria that may be on meat or poultry as indicated in  the Food Code, §3-401.11 Raw Animal Foods.

The English language version of the posters are currently available on the Educational Materials for Retail Food Employees website and can be downloaded and printed.

Additional versions of these posters will be available in weeks to come. These include two-sided posters with English on one side and Spanish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, or Hindi on the other.

These posters support the FDA’s Retail Food Safety Initiative, which seeks to strengthen the retail and food service industry’s control and reduction of foodborne illness risk factors. The agency encourages industry operators, food safety educators/trainers, and federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial regulatory officials to take full advantage of these materials, which are available free of charge at the FDA Educational Materials for Retail Food Employees website.

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The U.S. FDA recently released its findings from the initial phase of a 10-year study that is evaluating trends in food preparation practices and employee behaviors that contribute to foodborne illness outbreaks in the retail setting.

The “Report on the Occurrence of Foodborne Illness Risk Factors in Fast Food and Full Service Restaurants, 2013-2014” represents the first data collection period of the FDA’s 10-year study, which started in 2013 and will conclude in 2023. Data from the 2013-2014 collection will be used as a baseline to assess trends in the occurrence of risk factors during subsequent data collections, in 2017 and 2021 in fast food and full-service restaurants. Additional data collections in 2015, 2019, and 2023 investigate similar retail food safety research questions in institutional food service settings and retail food stores.

According to FDA, this national observational study is investigating the relationship between food safety management systems, certified food protection managers, and the occurrence of risk factors and food safety behaviors/practices commonly associated with foodborne illness in restaurants. The primary study objectives for the 2013-2014 data collection period were to:

• Identify the least and most often occurring foodborne illness risk factors and food safety behaviors/practices in restaurants within the U.S.;
• Determine the extent to which food safety management systems and the presence of a certified food protection manager impact the occurrence of food safety behaviors/practices, and;
• Determine whether the occurrence of food safety behaviors/practices in restaurants differs based on an establishment’s risk categorization (the number of times the establishment has been inspected based on the risk associated with the complexity of food preparation in the food establishment) and status as a single-unit or multiple-unit operation (whether the establishment is a part of a chain or not).

Key findings from the information collected during the 2013-2014 restaurant data collection period showed there remains a need to gain better control over employee handwashing and proper temperature control of foods that require refrigeration (cold holding of foods).

FDA’s National Retail Food Team will continue to work with stakeholders, such as the National Restaurant Association, National Council of Chain Restaurants, restaurant chain companies, and state restaurant associations in addressing food safety behaviors/practices in need of attention.

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After more than two years of declining sales and flat traffic numbers, the restaurant industry is scrambling to find solutions. Delivery services have been hailed as one of the industry’s biggest hopes for redemption, capitalizing on always-connected consumers’ need for “on-demand” everything. While some sectors of the restaurant industry have always relied on delivery—pizza, for example—as a way to generate revenue, delivery is a new frontier for other sectors, such as quick service restaurants and casual dining. And just like any new frontier, there are hurdles that need to be faced and decisions to be made.

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A recent study conducted by the CDC revealed that correctional inmates are 6.4 times more likely to suffer from a food-related illness than the general population.

Mariel A. Marlow, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist with the CDC, lead author on the study, notes there are several reasons why the risk of foodborne illness is higher for correctional inmates.

“Compared to the general population, inmates have an increased risk for infection related to crowding, not enough handwashing areas, poor hygiene, and lack of training in sanitation and disease prevention among inmates,” she says. “Inmates are completely dependent on institutional food safety practices. Moreover, they have less access than the general public to report foodborne illness directly to a state or local health department.”

The study, entitled “Foodborne Disease Outbreaks in Correctional Institutions—United States, 1998–2014,” was published in the July 2017 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, and found correctional foodborne outbreaks are routinely among the largest outbreaks each year as inmates suffer a disproportionate number of outbreak-associated foodborne illness. In fact, between 1998 to 2014, there were 200 foodborne outbreaks in correctional institutions, resulting in 20,625 illnesses, 204 hospitalizations, and five deaths.

Alex Friedmann, managing editor of Prison Legal News, and associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center, headquartered in Lake Worth, Fla., states one reason that prisons have an increase in foodborne illnesses are they are not inspected by health food inspectors with the same level of scrutiny as a restaurant or other non-prison facility.

“There’s a stigma that prisoners aren’t as important,” he says. “Historically, prison food is pretty abysmal—spoiled or expired food is not uncommon due to budgetary issues. There is a very small amount of money to feed prisoners, and anytime you are buying lower quality, there’s potentially more problems and outbreaks of illness that could occur.”

The problem is, there is no universal rule for food safety in prisons, as state, local, and federal prisons all have different guidelines. Federal prisons adhere to the Bureau of Prisons’ Food Service Manual, which unlike the FDA’s rule book for restaurants, lacks any clear language about when a kitchen worker can start working after being sick and has no requirements for kitchen workers to be trained in food safety.

State and local prisons are responsible for their own guidelines and can follow whatever rules they want, and many aren’t too concerned with this issue.

Solving the Prison Food Problem

A way to combat the problem, Friedmann shares, is by increasing oversight on food preparation and services.

“We recommend independent oversight and holding prisons to a higher standard, to ensure you are serving quality food,” he says. “These are massive institutions, and there could be 500 to 2,000 people eating the same meal, so if something goes wrong, that impacts a lot of people. Increasing quality control would help to resolve the problem.”

Dr. Marlow says the CDC highlights four provisions in FDA’s Food Code to prevent foodborne illness in food establishments: requiring food service employees to wash their hands; prohibiting bare hand contact with ready-to-eat food; excluding ill food service staff from working until at least 24 hours after symptoms, such as vomiting and diarrhea, have ended; and requiring at least one employee to be a certified food protection manager.

“Teaching food safety to inmates could be an opportunity to reduce foodborne illness,” Dr. Marlow says. “This can also be an opportunity to educate the workforce as the food industry is one of the main industries that hires ex-offenders and participates in reentry programs.”

Because inmates have little choice than to consume foods served by the correctional institution, it is imperative that those foods are safe. Friedmann believes public health officials, correctional officials, and food suppliers can work together for food safety.

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Fridge temperature (iStockphoto)

(Editor’s Note: This is an online-only article attributed to the April/May 2018 issue.)

According to a 2017 report by the National Restaurant Association, turnover in the hospitality industry—sometimes referred to as the “quits rate”—topped 70 percent for the second consecutive year. This means that restaurant staffers, both in the front and the back of the house, must be replaced about every six to eight months.

There was a significant decline in the turnover rate during the Great Recession. The reasons for this were likely because there were fewer jobs in the industry overall and those who were lucky enough to have a job kept it.

But times are different now. Because the economy is doing much better, many staffers keep their eyes open for new opportunities and are quick to jump ship when they find them. Further, restaurants hire a significant number of teenagers and students. Invariably, many of these employees work on a temporary basis, due to school and other factors.

Don’t forget that seasonal staffing is common in the restaurant industry. A resort-area restaurant in Michigan, for example, may be bustling during the summer months, but have few customers in the winter. Obviously, this will impact how many employees are working at the property throughout the year.

Whatever the reasons, turnover creates challenges for restaurant owners and managers. And, one of the most significant challenges that must stay at the top of the list is food safety.

When a whole new crew comes on board, all must often be taught some fundamental food safety rules, whether the employees stay for six months or six years. And many of the most critical safety concerns, especially if workers are involved with food handling and preparation, revolve around food temperatures: freezing, chilling, unfreezing, and cooling food after it has been cooked, all in an attempt to prevent bacteria growth.

The following are some of the most important of these temperature safety rules that “newbies” should be aware of.

Fridge Temperatures

The U.S. FDA mandates that refrigerated products be kept at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or colder and frozen foods at 0 degrees Fahrenheit or colder. Staff should also know that chilled food should be placed in the fridge or freezer as soon as it is delivered. If the temperature of chilled food tops 40 degrees Fahrenheit, known as the “danger zone,” or frozen food is allowed to thaw before being placed in the freezer, food-poisoning bacteria may grow.

Pathogenic Bacteria

Food contaminated with pathogenic microorganisms usually looks fine, may taste great, and can smell very inviting. However, pathogenic bacteria in food can cause various health risks, from mild indigestion to severe food poisoning. In many cases, this type of bacteria develops when food is left out too long to cool and reaches temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cold-Loving Bacteria

What may come as a surprise to many new staffers is that certain types of bacteria thrive in cold temperatures. Referred to as psychrophilic (cold-loving) bacteria, these microorganisms can grow slowly at very cold temperatures. This usually does not result in food spoilage.

However, once food that has been contaminated with psychrophilic microorganisms is left out to unfreeze for cooking, the bacteria can begin to grow, and grow very fast. The best way to prevent this growth is to allow the food to unfreeze in the refrigerator, instead of on a counter, and keep continuous tabs on the food’s temperature while it is unfreezing.

Storage Issues

Ready-to-eat food may be delivered to a commercial kitchen fresh but could become contaminated when it is placed in the fridge or freezer. What your staff needs to know is that these food items should be wrapped and placed in a separate area in the freezer/fridge to avoid contamination. Additionally, the food should be date-coded to make sure it is used within the recommended period.

Power Failures

One of the most important concerns when it comes to food temperatures is what to do if there is a power failure. When the power first goes out, do not open the freezer. Usually, the food will remain safe in the freezer for up to 48 hours. However, here are some guidelines staff should know:

• If the food is still frozen, leave it in the freezer or look for an alternative freezer;
• If the food has begun to defrost, allow it to continue, and then cook it as soon as possible;
• Fully defrosted or thawed food, such as raw meat, fish, or poultry, should be cooked immediately—then it can be re-frozen; and
• Food that has thawed, if not cooked, must be discarded.

Most of these issues can be addressed, ensuring food is safe and healthy, if food temperatures are regularly monitored. Traditionally, this has been accomplished by manually checking fridge/freezer temperatures or the temperatures of food that has been left out to unfreeze or cool after cooking. These checks should then be followed by a staffer who prepares hand-recorded logs.

However, because monitoring food temperatures is so crucial, it may not be a good idea to turn this responsibility over to a new employee. It can be automated for both new and long-term staffers. Systems that continuously monitors food temperature using temperature probes are ideal. These systems can deliver results to a monitor or dashboard and be recorded and logged. Alerts for irregularities (such as when food left out for unfreezing has entered the danger zone) can be emailed to kitchen staffers.

Restaurant and food service business owners and managers are well-aware of the importance of food safety. This importance must be stressed to new workers during training. Unfortunately, due to high worker turnover, this education is an ongoing effort. Food temperature issues are just too important to be ignored.

Sharek is category manager of facility-employee safety at DayMark Safety Systems. Reach him at esharek@cmcgp.com.

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The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was introduced in 2011, aiming to prevent food contamination and subsequent foodborne illnesses rather than just respond to it. One overlooked element within the FSMA is disposable gloves. Labeled as intermittent contact items, the risk of contamination from these products is not seen as great enough to warrant close observation.

However, growing scientific evidence shows disposable gloves, in direct contact with food, can and do affect food safety, with around 15 percent of food service foodborne outbreaks implicating contaminated gloves as contributory factors in the outbreak.

What are Food Service Gloves?

Food service gloves are certified under FDA Title 21 CFR Part 177, which states that the components of the glove must comply with the FDA regulations and consist of “Substances generally recognized as safe for use in food or food packaging.”

However, the quality and safety of disposable gloves is limited to Letters of Compliance and Guarantee on the general make and model of the glove submitted (once) for testing, not necessarily the subsequent gloves produced. There are few controls required for glove manufacturing relating to the reliability of raw materials, manufacturing processes, and factory compliance after the certification has been awarded.

It is possible for a glove manufacturer to achieve FDA Title 21 CFR Part 177 certification for a glove, then alter manufacturing and hygiene practices, and use cheap raw materials to save costs. Cheap raw materials lower glove strength, flexibility, and durability—increasing glove failure rates, and may also introduce toxic compounds, including known endocrine disruptors and potassium cyanide to glove users and food products.

Fluctuations in raw material prices and the demand for lower costs from the end user puts manufacturers under pressure to sacrifice ingredient quality and substitute raw materials to meet these demands.

The opportunity also exists for deliberate or accidental contamination within the manufacturing process, which the FSMA is now addressing.

Are Food Service Gloves Food Safe?

The AQL of a disposable glove is the “Acceptable Quality Level” and refers to a quality standard for measuring pinhole defects. Glove manufacturers test a random sample of gloves from a batch during initial production. The lower the AQL, the less defects gloves have. An AQL of 1.5, for example, requires that gloves be manufactured with no more than 15 failures for every 1,000 gloves produced.

In comparison to medical or examination grade gloves, no formal government regulations or inspection program exists for food service gloves over and above the FDA Title 21 CFR Part 177 regulation. There is no AQL requirement for food service gloves, meaning there are no guidelines for maximum pinhole defects—no guidelines for the number of failures per box.

Glove Holes and Food Contamination

Moreover, the human skin is a rich environment for microbes consisting of around 1,000 species, and the skin surface can contain on average 2 million to 10 million microorganisms. Most are resident species, some with the potential to cause disease (Staphylococcus spp. or Streptococcus spp.), but transient pathogens are the driver of foodborne infection transmission.

Organisms can become resident colonizers on hands, and combined with a glove puncture, a “liquid bridge” of microbial contamination can flow to contact surfaces of food.

Studies have shown up to 18,000 staphylococci can pass through a single glove hole during a 20-minute period, even though the hands had been scrubbed for 10 minutes prior to gloving. With more than 250 different foodborne diseases associated with food or drink, there is ample opportunity for leaky gloves to share responsibility for transmission.

In-use glove studies show that 50-96 percent of glove punctures go undetected by wearers, with the potential to release tens of thousands of bacteria from internal glove surfaces to food.

Chemicals that Cause Cancer

Vinyl (PVC, polyvinyl chloride) gloves are the most commonly used glove in food handling and processing in the U.S. due to assumed price savings. Up to 50 percent of vinyl glove raw materials are made up of plasticizers which, to reduce costs, can contain inexpensive phthalates DINP (Diisononyl phthalate) and DEHP (Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate), and BPA (Bisphenol A).

Phthalates have been shown to leach from products into the human body via ingestion, inhalation, and dermal absorption. Because phthalate plasticizers are not chemically bound to PVC, they can easily leach and evaporate into food, particularly fatty foods, such as butter, oils, and meat—where they become mostly soluble. Phthalate plasticizers can also be absorbed through workers’ skin and quickly contaminate food products.

Exposure to DEHP has been associated with adverse reproductive, neurobehavioral, and respiratory outcomes in children and metabolic disease risk factors, such as insulin resistance in adolescents and adults.

Both DINP and DEHP have been found to adversely impact human health and have been added to the Californian Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer.

Studies conducted in Japan found that use of disposable PVC gloves during the preparation and packaging of meals was a major source of dietary intake of DEHP. The same study also demonstrated a decline in DEHP levels in prepared meals after the ban of DEHP in PVC gloves in Japan.

Food is likely contaminated with phthalates and BPA during processing from PVC in materials such as PVC (vinyl) gloves and food packaging materials.

In 2001, Japan banned PVC gloves for food handling due to the well-documented adverse effects on health. The European Union (2008) has banned the use of DEHP in food service gloves out of concern that the chemical will leach into food and be ingested.

Adverse health effects of exposure to BPA and phthalates in U.S. food and occupational settings is estimated to result in $175 billion in healthcare costs.

Vinyl Gloves and Cross-Contamination

Gloves have the potential to mitigate, transfer, or amplify cross-contamination risks.

There is a growing accumulation of scientific evidence showing vinyl gloves (over other types) are responsible for a majority of cross-contamination events in food handling related to glove use where glove type is identified.

Due to their polymeric structure, numerous studies have shown vinyl gloves have an increased permeability to bacteria and virus, and in some cases, begin leaking as soon as they are donned, increasing the risk of cross-contamination for both the glove users and the food they are handling.

Recent independent research conducted by international scientific consultant on food safety and glove expert Barry Michaels has also shown that the risk of cross-contamination via vinyl gloves when used in food handling is significant when compared to nitrile gloves.

The science involved in cross-contamination is complex, involving the physical chemistry of surfaces, soils, and pathogens. Liquid and soil transfer to and from surfaces is controlled by forces of attraction governed by the surface tension of liquids (or semi-solids) and the surface free energy of surfaces.

The surfaces of polyvinyl chloride (vinyl) gloves are more energetic than nitrile gloves, with pickup and spread thermodynamically favored. This means that food and human soil contaminants are more easily picked-up and spread over vinyl glove surfaces and anything they touch when compared to lower-stick nitrile gloves.

Published studies by independent investigators confirm that glove material and glove hydrophobicity were the most important factors influencing bacterial transfer from a contaminated surface to a gloved hand—more hydrophilic vinyl gloves favor transfer while the more hydrophobic nitrile gloves have reduced risk.

From a food safety point of view, because food worker’s gloves are in direct contact with food, cross-contamination will follow the path of least resistance, in this case favoring vinyl glove pickup and transfer. Protecting food from bacterial and viral transfer from a gloved hand is essential for food and consumer safety to reduce foodborne illness and death.

As a result of his work Michaels commented that, “Food safety managers are gambling with the odds of a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak or some other extreme event if they do not look at the science involving bacterial transfer and glove use. Conditions for cross-contamination can be disrupted by making scientifically based, food safe glove selection choices”

Consider the following takeaways when procuring your disposable gloves to lower the risk of adverse foodborne events.

• Only choose disposable gloves with an AQL of 2.5 or less—pay for gloves that are suitable for food handling. The cost of an inferior glove is low, but failure rates can be high.
• Beware of cheap imports that may be reject clearance lines—you may be paying for glove failures and the potential spread of bacteria and virus.
• Prevent glove fraud by purchasing from reputable suppliers with quality control procedures in place and known raw material content of gloves.
• Purchase cost-effective nitrile gloves to reduce the risk of cross-contamination of food.
• Following correct hand hygiene is essential. Effective handwashing procedures, including washing around and under fingernails, limit microbes exposed to the damp inner glove environment.

Ardagh is CEO and founder of Eagle Protect PBC, which specializes in the supply of food safe disposable gloves and clothing, while Ronaldson is VP of marketing at the organization. Reach Ronaldson at Lynda@eagleprotect.com.

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Food safety in hospitals should be of the utmost importance because their populations are at a higher risk of developing a foodborne illness. “Patients may be elderly, have a chronic disease, or take medications that compromise their immune system, making it harder for them to fight an infection if they consume contaminated food,” says Sharon McDonald, MEd, RD, LDN, senior extension educator/food safety specialist, Penn State Extension, University Park, Pa.

Chemotherapy patients in particular are at risk for foodborne illness because in addition to destroying cancer cells, this cancer treatment attacks healthy cells—especially those that divide quickly such as bone marrow, which produces red and white blood cells and platelets. “With fewer white blood cells, which fight infection, it becomes more difficult to ward off harmful microorganisms that can cause illness and to fight off illness if it occurs,” McDonald says.

Ted Flood, CDM, director of food and nutrition, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, Mass., says chemotherapy patients are put on special diets, which exclude uncooked fruits and vegetables—which are more prone to harmful bacteria.

At University of Wisconsin Health, Madison, Wis., Liz Reynolds, MS, RDN, culinary education specialist, says the institution has administrative policies in place that govern its food safety procedures and operations. “We are routinely inspected by local and state regulatory authorities, like any food service establishment,” she says. Hospital inspection agencies such as The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and The Joint Commission regularly conduct inspections.

McDonald says hospital food service departments have policies and procedures that address food safety, such as recording a food’s final cooking temperature, monitoring refrigeration temperatures, monitoring temperatures of food before and after service, cleaning and sanitizing procedures for equipment, and monitoring temperatures in dishwashing machines.

Flood says daily checklists, monitoring patient traylines, and completing tray accuracy reports help keep patients safe. Quality audits—conducted by an outside firm—ensure that food service workers follow food safety standards.

Challenges
McDonald believes a challenge is helping hospital staff to understand their roles in keeping food safe, and to keep this top of mind. “This requires not only initial training, but refresher training as well so what they do related to food safety becomes second nature,” she says. “Staff should also feel comfortable taking action if a problem could compromise food safety. Staff in other hospital areas need to understand safe food handling practices as well, such as storing food or reheating food on nursing units.”

Reynolds says training and educating staff is an ongoing process. Solid operational systems ensure that all the little details critical for food safety are in place, so staff works in unison.

Recommendations
To enforce food safety in hospitals, McDonald advises making sure food service staff have a basic knowledge of how a foodborne illness can occur. “This requires understanding how bacteria, viruses, parasites, and people can contaminate food,” she says. “This foundational knowledge can then be tied into their responsibilities.” For example, if staff know that cooking foods to a specific temperature will destroy bacteria, then they can understand why it is critical to check a food’s final temperature.

All new staff at University of Wisconsin Health are required to complete a food safety training course before entering the kitchen or serving patients. “This ensures that we provide thorough training on our standards and what we expect in our kitchens,” she says. “The key is to keep staff well informed and to give them the tools they need to succeed.”

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A group of Canadian gourmets is hoping to smash misconceptions about HIV transmission one plate at the time by opening a pop-up restaurant run entirely by staff infected with the virus.

Located in Toronto, the restaurant called June’s on November 7 was serving its first meals prepared by HIV-positive cooks to dispel any notion that food preparation can spread the virus.

Wearing aprons printed with such messages as “Kiss the HIV+ cook” and “I got HIV from pasta. Said no one ever,” June’s 14 HIV-positive cooks will be serving customers who prepaid to reserve their tables.

The idea of June’s came in response to a survey last month that found only half of Canadians would eat food prepared by someone with HIV.

The survey was conducted by Casey House, a non-profit that planned the pop-up, or temporary, restaurant, said the group’s head Joanne Simons. Casey House provides health care for people with HIV/AIDS.

HIV is spread when infected fluid enters the bloodstream, but not by sharing food, according to health authorities.

June’s will be open just two days, serving 200 customers who bought reserved tickets for C$125 ($98), Simons said.

The tickets sold out in less than two weeks and, with such strong demand, another restaurant run by HIV-positive staff may be in the offing, she said.

“We’d love to be able to do it in places like New York and San Francisco and London,” Simons told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The menu features such items as northern Thai potato leek soup and ginger-bread tiramisu, she said.

Since 2005, HIV incidence in Canada appears to be declining, according to a 2015 report by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Worldwide, since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, more than 70 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and 35 million died, according to the World Health Organization.

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“Illnesses at Connecticut hotel, convention center under investigation”

“Bride suing hotel after norovirus outbreak at wedding reception”

“Report: Hotel chef ‘most likely’ source of norovirus outbreak”

Each of these is an actual news headline from recent years.

Today, travelers expect the hotels they choose to offer food, whether it’s a full-service hotel with restaurants and banquet services, or a limited service hotel that offers snacks and microwaveable meals. To customers, the responsibility of ensuring that these food items are safe falls to you; and failing to ensure that standard operating procedures (SOPs), staff, and vendors are all adhering to food safety standards could leave your hotel at the center of headlines like these.

But with a myriad of services offered by hotels today, food safety often goes beyond the obvious risks. Every operation is unique, and risks can vary depending upon the food services provided. Even the smallest slip in one area could result in a serious food safety crisis for a property, or create ramifications for the entire brand if it’s a franchised or corporate-owned location of a larger chain.
While the risks are serious, there are a number of actionable steps that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of an incident at your hotels.

1. Conduct a thorough gap analysis to identify areas of potential risk. When considering a food safety program, you need to assess risks throughout the facility. Kitchens may initially seem like the only area of real risk, but the truth is there may be dozens of other opportunities for potential foodborne risks. Does your hotel offer room service? Serve food poolside? Have an in-room gift service that may leave food sitting out? Do you regularly check food pantry, snack areas, or mini-bars for potential issues with refrigeration or pest infestation? Are all of your food handlers and servers fully versed on food safety practices? Do you have an allergen awareness program? Are your cleaning SOPs for food service equipment followed and enforced? Do you have a receiving policy in place for food items? Do your vendors know your food safety standards? Are you partnering with any food delivery services that provide guests with meals? These are the types of questions you or a food safety partner should ask during a gap analysis.

2. Ensure that all staff members have enough training to know the risks. Kitchen workers, bartenders, and food handlers should all receive in-depth food safety training in order to be prepared to handle a variety of circumstances—the food safety risks for a buffet will differ from those for table service. Hotels that host meetings and special events also serve guests in high volume, which requires knowledge of food safety risks that occur in these situations, including temperature controls for high volume foods.

Food handlers and servers should know key food allergens, understand where potential allergy risks exist in menu items, and be able to answer customer questions about them. Food allergies don’t just cause discomfort—for some guests, they can be life-threatening. In addition to initial on-boarding, conduct regular training to not only keep staff up to speed on changes in operation, your menu, and food regulation, but also to continually remind them of proper food safety practices.

Signage can also help serve your team as a continual reminder about important food safety practices. That said, be aware that any sign in place long enough can become “part of the environment” for food workers and be overlooked. If using signage, keep it fresh so that employees don’t become “sign blind.”

Beyond staff that directly work with food, be sure that all of your staff members—from front desk to housekeeping—have a basic understanding of food safety and know where to go for help or assistance in an emergency. For example, housekeepers may play a role in delivering food gifts to rooms—but do they understand why it is dangerous for food to remain unrefrigerated for longer than four hours? Is there a policy in place to ensure checks on these deliveries? Or, if a guest were to complain about becoming sick from food, would the front desk staff know the proper procedures to follow? If someone becomes sick in the buffet area, does the janitorial staff know the proper procedures to take for cleanup to prevent others from becoming ill? These are all food safety-related practices that could protect your brand from a serious illness incident.

3. Enforce a workplace illness policy, especially for food handlers. In recent years, many foodborne illness outbreaks linked to hotels have been identified as starting with a food handler who worked while ill. Norovirus, which is highly contagious, can be spread easily when food workers who are sick handle food and beverages. A food handler with Hepatitis A can also put people at risk; and anyone exposed to Hepatitis A may require a course of vaccination. These foodborne illness incidents put guests at risk, open properties up to liability, and could expose your brand to negative publicity.

Be sure that the staff understands the risk that an ill food handler poses to the operation. It can be very impactful to talk to them about the human costs of the decision to work while ill. Beyond sickening customers, they could also sicken co-workers, causing them to be out of work, and leaving your team short-staffed. A foodborne illness incident could put the hotel’s food operations or entire property in danger of being closed by the health department or regulatory agency, which could result in many people being out of work for a period of time—lasting days or even weeks. In that same vein, a foodborne illness incident could create the opportunity for lawsuits, which, if severe enough, could put the hotel out of business.

This is an especially important discussion to have with workers who do not have the opportunity to earn paid sick leave. Often, these workers come to work ill because they can’t afford to take the time off, not realizing that their sickness could be putting so much more in jeopardy.

4. Utilize third-party auditors as an ally for your business. Partnering with a third-party auditing company can help ensure that brand and regulatory food safety practices are being adhered to in every location. Third-party assessments provide an objective viewpoint to spot any potential risks early on and recommend a corrective action plan. The best third-party companies also have their fingers on the pulse of the overall hospitality industry and can provide constructive insights into how your business is performing in food safety when compared with other hospitality industry benchmarks.

It’s no secret that many health departments are stretched thin. You might say, “I get inspected by the health department periodically, isn’t that sufficient?” These inspections may not actually be frequent enough to really identify problems and make organizational change. Three or four third-party assessments a year can help track progress and drive long-term behavior change for your entire team.

Third-party assessments can also complement the training demand that many hospitality operations find themselves under. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2016, turnover in the hospitality sector is nearly 73 percent—highlighting how most operations are hiring new staff members regularly. Thorough third-party auditors can help coach team members new and old on company’s standards and critical food safety practices, serving to reinforce training already conducted.

Some third-party assessment companies can even extend their assessments to evaluate operational elements of the property as well—the pool, spa, lobby, parking lot, meeting rooms, etc.—to judge items such as cleanliness, safety, staff interactions, and more.

With the hotel guest experience continually evolving, the number of areas in which hotels are exposed to food safety risks will only increase. Training and attention to food safety risks can no longer be isolated to the kitchen. Anywhere, any person, and any equipment that is along the path food travels in your operation allows for potential incursion of foodborne pathogens or an opportunity for food to become compromised. To safeguard your business, consider implementing a robust food safety program that includes a gap analysis, staff training, a well-developed and enforced illness policy, and third-party assessments. By taking these proactive steps, your hotel is setup for success to ensure guests have a stay that is memorable for all the right reasons.

Sutton is the president of Steritech, a provider of food safety and service assessments. Reach him at doug.sutton@steritech.com.

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