It’s not swine flu, it’s people coming to work when they’re barfing. I understand it’s probably not the person’s fault – they may get fired if they don’t show up. But barfing employees should not be serving food. And that’s exactly what happened to 46 other employees at a Des Plaines, Ill., company last week.

The 46 workers at UOP, a manufacturing technology company, were infected by a norovirus -- a stomach bug -- that apparently was carried by a food service worker at the firm, said Amy Poore, a spokeswoman for the Cook County Department of Public Health.
 

When asked about swine flu – oh, sorry, the H1N1 flu – U.S. President Barack Obama said during his prime-time 100-day press commencement conference that handwashing and staying at home if sick were key to controlling any potential spread of flu.

As we’ve said, proper handwashing with the proper tools -- soap, water and paper towel -- can significantly reduce the number of foodborne and other illnesses, even the emerging swine flu.

The steps in proper handwashing, as concluded from the preponderance of available evidence, are:

• wet hands with vigorously flowing water;

• use enough soap to build a good lather;

• scrub hands vigorously, creating friction and reaching all areas of the fingers and hands for at least 10 seconds to loosen pathogens on the fingers and hands;

• rinse hands with thorough amounts of water while continuing to rub hands; and

• dry hands vigorously with paper towel.

If any of the tools for handwashing are missing, let someone know.

However, even with reminders and access to the proper tools, not everyone will practice good hygiene. Those signs that say, ‘Employees Must Wash Hands’ don’t always work. We’re working in settings like high schools and hospitals to figure out the best way to not only tell people to wash their hands, but to use new media and messages to really compel individuals to wash their hands.

A video is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piwl-Mfwc_s

and a poster at
http://fsninfosheets.blogspot.com/2008/02/dude-wash-your-hands.html.

The New York Times reports that scores of colleges and universities across the country are shelving cafeteria trays in hopes of conserving water, cutting food waste, softening the ambience and saving money.

The story has lots of the usual fuzzy stuff about sustainability but mentions nothing about sanitation. In the absence of trays, the silverware better stay on the plate because the accumulated microbiological mess on the cafeteria tables would cross-contaminate any forks, knives and spoons that were placed on the table.
 

If you ever find yourself in downtown Nashville, TN looking for a place to pee, WBBM780 Chicago recommends using the facilities at the Hermitage Hotel.

The hotel’s ground-floor men’s bathroom has won the award for “America’s Best Restroom”.

Janet Kurtz, director of sales and marketing at the hotel, says,

"You just can't find anything like it anywhere else. People see it and fall in love with it."

The redoubtable restroom is art-deco style with gleaming lime-green-and-black leaded glass tiles, lime-green fixtures, terrazzo floor and a two-seat shoeshine station.

The restroom won the honor in online voting sponsored by Cincinnati-based Cintas Corp., which supplies restroom hygiene products and services. The company says "tens of thousands" of people voted over two months last summer.

Criteria were hygiene, style and access to the public. The highfalutin honor has earned the restroom entry to "America's Best Restroom Hall of Fame."

 

Two US counties have recently adopted systems to communicate restaurant inspection results with the public. They aren’t the first, likely won’t be the last, and demonstrate two different approaches to inspection disclosure.

The first is Calhoun county, MI, which has recently began posting inspection results online, reports the Battlecreek Enquirer.

The idea is to reward facilities that run a tight ship and to encourage the dirtiest ones to clean up their act, public health officials said.

Jim Rutherford, county health officer, explained,

"This is public information. It always has been. You could have gone and accessed this as a resident any time. What we're doing is just making it easily accessible to the public."

Calhoun county inspection results can be accessed online, here, but details of inspection are lacking – the website only indicates if an establishment is “In compliance” or “Non compliant.”

Darien, CT has adopted disclosure at the premise, with inspection cards mandatorily being displayed at the premise, reports DarienTimes.com.

The rating must be posted in a conspicuous location clearly visible to the public near the current permit and remain posted until the next scheduled inspection…There are three possible ratings: good, fair and poor. Good and fair ratings do not require any changes.

Should a restaurant receive a poor rating, it has two weeks to clean up its act before a re-inspection.

Though there is some concern regarding the “Fair” card, Health Director David Knave feels the system will provide incentive for restaurants to have “clean and healthy practices,” and,

“This is an extra tool in addition to the inspection. That’s the intent here, to have ‘fair’ be a label you don’t want…Something to push them in the right direction.”

Both disclosure systems have the same main goal: provide incentives for those within foodservice to meet health requirements, while providing the public with information they desire and deserve.
 

In his report into the 2005 epidemic that struck down more than 150 people, most of them children, across the South Wales Valleys and claimed the life of Mason Jones, aged five (right), Professor Hugh Pennington found that all of the inspections made at the premises of the butcher responsible in the months before people became ill had been pre-arranged.

This allowed Bridgend-based William Tudor time to clean up and to doctor cleaning records to mislead Bridgend Council’s inspectors.

Prof Pennington has now recommended all inspections, primary and secondary, must be unannounced unless “there are specific and justifiable circumstances or reasons why a pre-arranged visit is necessary”.

The parents of four of the victims want to go further and Julie Price, Jeanette Thomas and Mason’s mother Sharon Mills, are re-forming an action group in a bid to achieve their aim.

“We want to make it illegal for hygiene inspectors to carry out announced visits of butchers and other places where food is prepared,” said Mrs Price, mother of 13-year-old Garyn, who was left fighting for his life after contracting the food poisoning bug which spread through school dinners.

“We want that set in stone.”

Unannounced inspections are recommended in The Food Law Practice Guidance (Wales). But announced inspections remain lawful and continue to happen.

As easy as it may be to assume, there’s no evidence that the swine flu spreading through Mexico and beyond is sickening pigs now.

The World Health Organization reports that illnesses in Mexico are climbing close to 1,000 with more than 50 deaths—all of which are human. Eighteen of those cases were laboratory confirmed by labs in Canada.

Though, as a precaution, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is “asking swine producers, veterinarians and labs to increase their vigilance in monitoring for and reporting swine disease.”

Is that a better use of resources than increasing monitoring activities of flu-like symptoms in humans?

The Public Health Agency of Canada website says of human swine influenza, “Sporadic human infections with swine flu have occurred, however these are usually caused by direct exposure to pigs,” and, “Human to human transmission of swine influenza has been documented.”

Are Canadians getting the whole story? Is this the best way to protect public health?

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified 20 human cases of swine flu in several states, and an investigation website outlines what is known about the virus to this point (it’s susceptible to certain antiviral drugs) and the steps being taken to find out more.

This information gives the public a better picture of the possible risks to their health and how those risks are being managed.

The interested public can generally handle more, not less, information about food safety.
 

Katie and I were craving hamburgers this weekend and Doug decided to indulge us. At the supermarket on Saturday he picked up some ground beef along with our normal cart full of produce and other proteins. As usual, I tried to separate the items in the cart so that the fresh produce was not touching the beef, pork, or salmon filets, even though all the meat was wrapped.

Checkout on Saturdays is always busy, and with a baby, a shopper’s plus card, a payment method, eco-friendly shopping bags, and chatter with the cashiers and baggers, there are plenty of distractions. On this particular day, the new store manager was bagging our items and complementing Doug on his culinary ability: “I can see you must be a good cook because those items require skill.” I chimed in with full-hearted agreement. Doug’s an awesome cook.

In the meantime, as the hamburger was being passed over the scale and scanner, juice poured out all over the place. I watched the cashier and was about to say something, but she pulled out a sanitary wipe and cleaned her hands. She then proceeded to pass every one of our produce items over the scale and through the hamburger juice. I felt like I should say something but wanted Doug to be the bad ass. And as I stood there stunned, not wanting the store manager to fire the woman, she completed our transaction and was on to the next person.

As soon as we exited the store, I declared we would have to wash every piece of produce in the bags. It didn’t even occur to me until later that the following person’s items were also going to pass over that potentially E.coli-laden scale. And maybe the same thing had already happened five times before we arrived. Maybe we were already at risk before our hamburger leaked all over.

It’s important to wash fresh fruits and vegetables to remove external contamination, because you never know where it’s been. Once your produce is exposed, it can contaminate other items in your bag or at home. Even if you are a careful consumer, it’s difficult to know just where that tomato has been.

(P.S. Doug cooked the burgers to a perfect 160F and they were delicious.)

 

Julie Schmit of USA Today has written another excellent overview documenting the multiple failures – bad inspections, bad audits, bad people -- that led to the peanut paste crapola that sickened 700 and killed nine.

Below are just a few of the highlights:

•Deibel Labs, which ran more than 1,600 salmonella tests for PCA's Blakely plant from 2004 through 2008, found almost 6% positive. It was so many that Deibel sent PCA's samples to a separate part of its Chicago lab to lessen chances that they'd contaminate other products, Charles Deibel, the firm's president, said in an interview. For roasted products such as peanuts, a positive rate above 1 in 10,000 would be high, Deibel said. Proper roasting kills salmonella with heat. PCA never asked Deibel to look into the issue, Deibel said.

•Nestlé audited the Blakely plant in 2002 and rejected it as a supplier. Nestlé's audit report said the plant needed a "better understanding of the concept of deep cleaning" and failed to adequately separate unroasted raw peanuts from roasted ones. Having them in the same area could allow bacteria on raw nuts to contaminate roasted ones, a risk known as cross-contamination. The plant wasn't even close to Nestlé's standards, auditor Richard Hutson said in an interview. Hutson, who now heads quality assurance for several Nestlé divisions, said he shared his concerns with PCA officials at the time, but "they didn't pursue it" further with Nestlé, he says.

• To win customers, Parnell "extolled" the fact that an auditor, AIB International, had rated the plant as "superior," said King Nut CEO Martin Kanan at a congressional hearing. King Nut sold peanut butter under its name that was made by PCA. That rating also satisfied Kellogg, which began buying PCA's peanut paste for sandwich crackers in 2007.

• AIB also draws criticism from a former food-industry official. Its audit of PCA was "superficial," said Jim Lugg, former food-safety chief for bagged salad maker Fresh Express, who reviewed AIB's audit of PCA at USA TODAY's request. One example of "shallow treatment of a big issue," Lugg says, is that the audit notes that PCA had a written program to evaluate suppliers and had an approved list. But AIB did no further checking of the suppliers. Years ago, Fresh Express stopped using AIB audits because it found them inadequate, he adds.
 

The Toronto Star reports that a health alert was issued today after it was discovered that two employees of a Newmarket Tim Hortons were found infected with Hepatitis A.

York Region Public Health was notified of a case of hepatitis A at the Tim Hortons at 16545 Yonge St., near Savage Rd., on April 21. Following the initial investigation, it was decided the risk to customers was very low based on the employee’s position.

"He was not involved in food handling," said York Region medical officer of health Dr. Karim Kurji. "Given that, we didn’t feel the need to notify the public."

Oops, because...

The next day investigators conducted routine tests and offered immunization to workers. These tests revealed a second case, which was discovered on April 24. It was decided the risk of contamination to the public in this case was higher.

"The overall assessment when investigating the risk with the second case was the employee was handling food," said Kurji. "It was prudent for us to reach out to public and take necessary precautions.

York Region Public Health is holding a vaccine clinic Monday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the auditorium of the Newmarket Health Centre. People who ate food from this Tim Hortons between April 13 and April 22 are eligible for the vaccine. However, anyone who ate there between April 2 and April 22 could be infected.

Hep A happens a lot, but the way this one has been handled raises a few questions for me:

I wonder why the folks who ate at the Hortons before April 13th are excluded from eligibility from the vaccine? Does someone need to prove (with a receipt?) that they ate there between April 13 and 22nd? Who bears the cost if someone wants to get an IGG shot and is excluded? What happens if that individual gets sick?

This week's food safety infosheet was about Hep A in a produce handler in Colorado.

Daughter and would-be blogger Courtlynn (below right, exactly as shown) writes that,

“Coming home from school this afternoon, a rush of fear and anxiety seemed to linger. 20 people died in Mexico. 500 nurses in Mexico have this, as well as people returning from Canada, in the past week. It's spread from California to Texas.”

The N.Y. Times reports this morning that Mexican officials, scrambling to control a swine flu outbreak that has killed as many as 61 people and infected possibly hundreds more in recent weeks, closed museums and shuttered schools for millions of students in and around the capital on Friday, and urged people with flu symptoms to stay home from work. …

The new strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flus, North American bird flu and North American human flu, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A similar virus has been found in the American Southwest, where officials have reported eight nonfatal cases. …

Mexico’s flu season is usually over by now, but health officials have noticed a significant spike in flu cases since mid-March. The W.H.O. said there had been 800 cases in Mexico in recent weeks, 60 of them fatal, of a flulike illness that appeared to be more serious than the regular seasonal flu. Mexican officials said there were 943 possible cases.

Still, only a small number have been confirmed as cases of the new H1N1 swine flu.
 

When I think Thunder Bay, Ontario in January, I think melons.

Ripe, juicy melons, like cantaloupe.

The Thunder Bay District Health Unit is investigating an increased number of Salmonella cases in Thunder Bay and District. Twenty-three cases of Salmonella have been reported since January of this year. We would normally expect approximately seven (7) cases in this time period.

Some cases have been linked to person-to-person transmission or travel and some are related to a North American outbreak being investigated by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). Six cases are still under investigation, but like most Salmonella cases, are likely related to unsafe food handling in the home. …

The outbreak under investigation by PHAC may be related to melons. Because melons grow at ground level, their rough and pitted outer skin can trap Salmonella bacteria from the soil. If the outer skin of a melon is contaminated, the fruit inside may be affected when the melon is cut. Follow these tips:

* Buy melons that are not bruised or damaged and store them in the fridge.
* Throw away any melon that is bruised or rotten.
* Wash all melons before cutting.  When cleaning a cantaloupe, brush the whole fruit under running water using a clean produce brush, getting into all the pits on the skin.
* Put cut melon on a clean plate; don’t put the pieces back on the cutting board.
* Don’t reuse any food equipment (e.g. knife, cutting board) used to prepare a melon.
* Wash all equipment with hot water and soap or clean them in the dishwasher.
* Store cut melon in a clean container in the fridge.

How is Salmonella in melons a consumer handling issue? Where is the data that says most Salmonella cases are related to unsafe food handling in the home? And why no notice from PHAC about an outbreak investigation?
 

One of the few pleasures in watching the movie, Baby Mama, is Steve Martin’s turn as Barry, the narcissistic, new-age genius who runs a Whole Foods-like organic supermarket chain, seen here transferring his success to v.p. and mama-to-be Tina Fey.

Stores like Whole Foods are easy to poke fun at because of their earnest idiocracy. But when a lifestyle choice crosses into public health outcomes, I stop snickering.

A buyer for one of these new-age stores sent the following to a supplier:

“I'm still not too crazy about pasteurized just as I'm not too crazy about ultra pasteurized dairy products in general. All one has to do is look at movement in our region regarding raw products, raw milk, and one quickly learns that our customers are for the less processed the better. In my 25+ years in the grocery business I don't recall ever having eggs returned to the stores because they were bad. I haven't refrigerated an egg in over 20 years myself personally, so although "salmonella" is currently getting a lot of press I'm not convinced that it really applies to eggs. When I worked at (another store) for nearly 13 years, we didn't have one incident that I was aware of regarding "bad eggs," and we NEVER refrigerated them until the law passed making refrigeration mandatory. We must have sold a billion eggs in those 13 years.”

I wouldn’t want this guy purchasing eggs for me, and not just because of his annoying use of air quotes – what Jon Stewart calls dick fingers. Salmonella is getting more than a lot of press; it makes a lot of people barf. And eggs are a source.
 

I say the first rule of public health is, don’t eat poop.

And have fewer sick people.

Bureaucrats say the first rule of public health is, cover your ass (no, not like that) so that the department comes out smelling all pretty and not like poop.

So after 21 people die and a bunch more got sick from listeria in Maple Leaf deli meats, what do Canadian bureaucrats focus on? Covering their asses.

The heads of three federal agencies pivotal to last summer's listeriosis crisis (right, not exactly as shown) want a damning report by Ontario's top public health official "clarified and corrected."

The most senior officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada demanded the revisions in a recent letter to Dr. David Williams, Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health.

Williams also noted that almost a month elapsed between the first listeriosis death last summer and a widespread recall of suspect Maple Leaf deli meats.

The letter suggests that criticism is unfair.

The he-said-she-said may be mildly entertaining for bureaucrats– in both official languages --  but does nothing to ensure that fewer people barf in the future.

Instead, the federal triumverate of see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil could focus on:

• making listeria test results public in a timely manner;

• providing compelling information to at-risk populations, especially pregnant women and old folks, that maybe they shouldn’t be eating products at risk for listeria contamination (cause Michael McCain says it’s everywhere); and,

• provide clear guidelines on how outbreaks of foodborne illness are investigated and at what point sufficient evidence exists to warn the pubic.
 

This is Amy making a face in Guelph in 2005 after being served raw pea sprouts when she specifically said, no sprouts. At a local Manhattan (Kansas) restaurant, we’re known as the ‘no sprouts’ people.

And now, sprouts are in the news again for making people barf.

The Michigan Department of Community Health is telling people to avoid alfalfa sprouts after an outbreak of salmonella sent two people to the hospital and sickened 14 others in southeast Michigan.

For the most part, people got infected from sprouts in sandwiches, but the origin of the sprouts is not yet known, MDCH officials said in a statement. The illnesses mostly occurred between March 23 and April 6.

This same salmonella caused a recall of alfalfa (sprouts) in the Midwest earlier this year.
 

A restaurant/bar in South Sioux City has closed down voluntarily to disinfect its premises after dozens of people became ill after eating there, according to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

The restaurant/bar at the Marina Inn has closed temporarily on the advice of health officials.

Symptoms are consistent with a norovirus, a highly contagious virus that is spread person to person or by food.
 

As we move to the launch of bites.ksu.edu, I am ceasing publication of Agnet and AnimalNet, effective immediately.

It’s Earth Day, and like the compost in my backyard recycling the detritus from last night’s dinner, I’m going back to one listserv, not four. That listserv is FSnet, and will contain the relevant animal and plant disease stories. If you want access to those stories, sign up for fsnet (instructions below). Or wait and sign up for bites. It will be ready to go in about a week.

To subscribe to the html version of FSnet, send mail to:
(subscription is free)
listserv@listserv.ksu.edu
leave subject line blank
in the body of the message type:
subscribe fsnet-L firstname lastname
i.e. subscribe fsnet-L Doug Powell
 

Independent Weekly is reporting that at least eight cases of foodborne illness are being investigated and that they may be linked to a common restaurant.

The illnesses, reported April 17, may be connected to Evoo, a Mediterranean restaurant in Raleigh's Five Points.

"We are currently investigating some reports of sickness," said André Pierce, director of the environmental health and safety division of the county's environmental services department. "The investigation is ongoing and we don't have any results yet."

The story goes on to say that according to Walt Fuller, deputy director in charge of operations at the Raleigh-Wake 911 Center,  shortly before 10 p.m the Center received an emergency call reporting that someone was ill at Evoo at 2519 Fairview Road.

One paramedic unit was dispatched at 9:50 p.m. and called for backup upon arriving at the scene, Fuller said. A second paramedic unit, a quick responder vehicle and a fire engine all responded. In all, nine rescuers attended victims at the restaurant.

While canning, freezing and growing food at home are increasing, so are discounted food sales. Sean Gregory writes in this week's Time that food items are now appearing at auctions across the U.S.,

As the stock market headed south last fall, Ron Peterson, owner of Elmer Auction, LLC, added grocery items like cereals and cleaning supplies to his ledger. And they've sold, to the cash-strapped ladies and gentlemen sitting in each and every row. "People are skipping the decorative items," says Peterson, "and buying what they need."

The story goes on to give a couple of examples of what is being sold at these auctions:

Clyde DeHart, owner of DeHart's Auction Service in Carlisle, Pa., takes "scratch n' dent" items from a nearby BJ's Wholesale Club store. Since BJ's sells in bulk, if one can of corn gets smashed in the truck, the whole case can't be displayed in the store. So DeHart takes the case, throws out the bad can, and auctions off the rest.

Some items are near or slightly past their sell-by dates, but these days, expiration won't keep shoppers from a discount. Other stuff is just sitting on the shelves, and will go to waste if it's not auctioned off.

At a grocery auction in early April, [Randy Zimmerman, mother of seven] bought hot dogs, frozen pizzas and an Easter ham, among other items. Zimmerman figures all the stuff she bought would have cost $300 in the grocery store. She paid $100.

Ripped bulk packaging isn't that much of a risk, but anything where the integrity of the direct packaging has been comprimised (such as a dented can) would be something to avoid.

It's not surprising that alternative (and cheaper) sources for food are popping up -- and that folks are seeking them out. The biggest issue with some of the items mentioned would be temperature control -- hard to trust that foods like Easter hams and hot dogs were held at the refrigeration temperatures after leaving (or being set aside) by the retailer. Handling of bulk fruits and vegetables by auctioneers and their staff could also lead to food safety problems.

The Denver Post reports that people who have eaten store-prepared produce from an Albertsons in Littleton, Colorado, recently could face shots because a store employee has tested positive for hepatitis A.

The Tri-County Health Department said the warning applies specifically to those who have bought green onions, celery that has had the leaves trimmed, any lettuce that was not pre-bagged, any pre-cut watermelon, cantaloupe or honeydew melon.

"The employee followed good hand hygiene practices and wore gloves," said Dr. Richard L. Vogt, executive Director of Tri-County Health Department.

For more information call the health department at 303-846-2006 or Albertsons at 1-877-932-7948. Information also is available on the health department website, www.tchd.org.

130 patrons of Noto’s Old World Italian restaurant in Grand Rapids, MI became ill after eating an Easter brunch buffet last weekend reports WZZM.

The Kent County Health Department says that of the 176 people that they have interviewed who ate at [the restaurant], 130 have reported symptoms of the illness, including vomiting and diarrhea.

A separate station, Grand Rapids News, indicated the restaurant reopened Thursday night after voluntarily closing and sanitizing.

Health officials are interviewing patrons and awaiting tests of stool samples, said spokeswoman Bridie Kent.

She continued,

"It's not safe to say it was food-borne at this point, it's possible it was spread another way.”

Buffets have been linked to illnesses in the past, including an E.coli O111 outbreak at a Ladies Tea, and a norovirus outbreak at a Norwegian hotel.
 

The New York Times reported this morning on the California leafy greens industry’s hiring of government inspectors in lieu of government-imposed visits by inspectors.

The almond industry and the Florida tomato industry have also instituted their own safety measures that invited oversight by federal agencies when the government did not independently provide it.

“It’s an understandable response when the federal government has left a vacuum,” said Michael R. Taylor, a former officer in two federal food-safety agencies and now a professor at George Washington University. But, he added, “it’s not a substitute” for serious federal regulation.

Is it the government’s responsibility to ensure that food is safe to eat, or is it the responsibility of those producing, processing, and selling it? Both, of course, in addition to those choosing to consume it and feed it to their loved ones.

Then, what’s so great about government-imposed inspections as opposed to inspections the food industry asks for? After devastating outbreaks in each industry awakened them to their invested interest in food safety, these three have been vigilant about minimizing the microbial risks to their commodities. Would the feds do a better job?

According to the Washington Post, a report by Taylor and his colleagues at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services determined that federal regulation of the inspection system and others is necessary to provide cohesion (and presumably increase efficacy) among safety-assuring efforts. In the report the authors urged Congress to “create a single cohesive food safety network composed of local, state and federal agencies and accountable to the secretary of health and human services.”

Some coordination certainly might move the country toward reducing the number of people who get sick from the food they eat. But each link in the food supply chain must remain proactive in their role in assuring food is safe to consume—regardless of who’s the boss.

Food handler training, required or encouraged in various jurisdictions across North America has been demonstrated by multiple studies to have various results. Most of the published research has focused on looking at inspection results, but in 2000, researchers in Oregon (April 2009 issue of Foodborne Pathogens and Disease) explored food handler food safety knowledge.

During April–September 2000 researchers administered a 28- question survey distilled from a longer survey obtained from the Oregon Food Handler Certification Program with 407 food handlers from 67 randomly-selected restaurants.The researchers found that their participants averaged 68% on the test. Significant differences were observed between managers’ average test scores and those of line staff: 74% versus 67%, respectively, and those with Oregon food handler training scored 69%, while those without one scored 63%.

Meatloaf sang that two out of three ain't bad, but in food safety training, retention-wise, it's not great.

The researchers conclude that survey demonstrates a limited level of knowledge among foodhandlers about food safety and that analyzing knowledge and comparing concurrent restaurant inspection scores would strengthen the understanding of food safety in restaurants.  The results of the survey also emphasize the need for educational programs tailored to improve foodhandlers knowledge of foodborne diseases.

I'd add that it's not like knowledge translates automatically into practice. Demonstrating knowledge change is interesting, but not nearly as important as behavior change.

Food handlers need some sort of basic training, but it's up to their managers and organization to make sure they stay up-to-date and that they have some sort of ongoing reminders (like food safety infosheets.

Reuters reports on a strategy for training that might have some applications with food handlers -- video game simulations.

Many businesses use serious videogames designed for the PC but Hilton Garden Inn (HGI) has taken the virtual training concept portable for the first time with "Ultimate Team Play".

Working with North Carolina-based game developer Virtual Heroes, HGI has created a videogame for Sony's PSP (PlayStation Portable) that allows employees to practice their jobs before they have to interact with customers.

It has the potential to be pretty cool and useful especially if used to demonstrate the team-like nature of foodservice and risk identification, but if it's pulled off cheaply it could look like Duck Hunt.

Unfunnyman Dane Cook and untalented Jessica Simpson have a better chance of finding future employment in pizza preparation – actually, a ridiculously certain chance -- than the two below.

Police in Conover, North Carolina say two Domino's Pizza workers and home video enthusiasts, 31-year-old Kristy Lynn Hammonds of Taylorsville and 32-year-old Michael Anthony Setzer of Conover (right, not exactly as shown) have each charged with distributing prohibited foods.

The pair (below, exactly as shown when booked) produced some employee training videos for Domino’s Pizza that are available at GoodAsYou, including one of Michael wiping his ass with a sponge and then using it to clean a pan, and another in which Kristy says, "Did you all see that? He just blew a booger on those sandwiches.”

A 22-year-old woman who helped prepare food at two catered events was diagnosed with hepatitis A in March, meaning that more than 200 people at one corporate event and about 100 at a second event, along with co-workers and roommates, had to be vaccinated.

South Australia Health refused to release any specific details, but did note there was an unrelated but "significant" increase in hepatitis A cases in SA and Victoria in a separate outbreak.

SA Health Communicable Disease Control Branch director Dr Ann Koehler said,

"We think it is probably a vegetable, but we just don't know yet."
 

Domino’s Pizza posted a youtube response last night and has moved quickly to douse the Internet-fanned yuckiness of poop in its pizza.

But when Domino's spokesman Tim McIntyre told USA Today today the company is considering banning video cameras in stores, I wonder if they actually understand this social networking stuff – and that anyone can have a video camera on their cell phone.

The USA Today piece explains that two Domino’s employees in Conover, N.C. — fired and facing charges — posted a video on YouTube on Monday that shows one of them doing gross things to a Domino's sub sandwich he is making, such as sticking cheese pieces up his nose and passing gas on the salami.

Although Domino's is getting fairly high marks from social-networking and crisis-management types about its response, McIntyre told the N.Y. Times today that company executives initially decided not to respond aggressively, hoping the controversy would quiet down.

Scott Hoffman, the chief marketing officer of the social-media marketing firm Lotame, said in social media, “if you think it’s not going to spread, that’s when it gets bigger.”

That’s actually traditional media 101, but sure, dress it up with terms like new and social media.
 
By Wednesday afternoon, Domino’s had created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to address the comments, and it had presented its chief executive in a video on YouTube by evening (see below).

Yet more than one commentator has said the video may make things worse.

Domino’s CEO Patrick Doyle fails to look into the camera. Instead his eyes peer at 45 degrees, presumably in the direction of a script. The effect is not reassuring. What is even more unfortunate for Domino's is that the posting of the video apology has caused even more YouTube commentary about the company, some of it extremely unflattering.

However, marketers are getting an instant lesson in the dangers of an online world where just about anyone with a video camera and a grudge can bring a company to its knees with lightning speed.

Here are key things experts say marketers can do to quickly catch and respond effectively to similar social-networking attacks:

• monitor social media;

• respond quickly;

• respond at the flashpoint (Domino's first responded on consumer affairs blog The Consumerist, whose readers helped track down the store and employees who made the video);

• educate workers about social media;

• foster a positive culture; and,

• set clear guidelines.

We covered many of the same points in our Food Technology paper about food safety blogging that appeared earlier this year.

Arrest warrants have been issued for Kristy and Michael, the two former Domino’s employees who had their 15-minutes of Internet fame yesterday.

The videos are available at GoodAsYou, including one of Michael wiping his ass with a sponge and then using it to clean a pan, and another in which Kristy says, "Did you all see that? He just blew a booger on those sandwiches.”

The Charlotte Observer reports that Catawba County health inspection records show the Domino's in Conover, on 10th Street N.W., has a very good sanitation rating -- 96.5. In fact, its last four inspections have produced scores ranging from 95.5 to 97.5.

Domino's officials and Catawba County health department inspectors took nothing to chance late Tuesday, sanitizing all equipment in the restaurant and throwing away all opened food items.

NewsChannel 36, the Observer's news partner, said Kristy sent an email to Domino's officials, saying it was a prank and that she and Michael never would prepare food that way -- in contrast to what they said on the video.

Domino's officials responded to the video Tuesday, sending out a news release that said, “We are appalled by the actions of these individuals and they do not represent the 125,000 hard-working men and women of Domino’s Pizza across the country and in 60 countries around the world.”
 

One year after publishing restaurant hygiene ratings online, the number of top-rated establishments has increased, reports the Northampton Chronicle and Echo.

[Last year hygiene ratings] revealed 19 venues were awarded a five- star rating while 46 were given the lowest possible rating of no stars. Twelve months on and the number of top-rated venues has increased to 30, while the number of zero-starred outlets has fallen to 37.

Restaurant hygiene scores have been available online in the UK borough of Northampton for a year as an attempt to name-and-shame establishments into cleaning up their act.

Leader of Northampton Borough Council, Councillor Tony Woods said of the disclosure scheme,

"It's good to see that standards of hygiene in Northampton are improving at a time when businesses are under significant financial pressure. We are going to carry on pressing home the importance of food hygiene and those venues that are not complying can expect us to take further action."

Northampton restaurant hygiene ratings can be accessed online, here.
 

Pistachio growers probably won’t agree, but the New York Times says in an editorial this morning that  the recent blanket warning from the Food and Drug Administration about salmonella in pistachios was one of the most encouraging events in years and sent a powerful signal to those in the food business that the F.D.A. planned to focus more urgently on the safety of consumers.

The editorial concludes that even though the Obama F.D.A. appears to be doing a better job, Congress needs to beef up the agency’s staff and broaden its recall authority. Longer term, Congress and the White House need to keep promises to take a deeper look at food safety. It is time to think seriously about establishing one federal agency to coordinate and enforce food-safety regulations — and give consumers the protections they need and deserve.
 

Kristy and Michael used to work at Domino’s Pizza in North Carolina. Then they decided to upload their, uh, creative approach to food preparation to youtube.

The videos were later taken off of youtube, but GoodAsYou managed to snag all of them including one of Michael wiping his ass with a sponge and then using it to clean a pan.All the videos are there. Essential tools for future food service training.

Tim McIntyre, vp communications, Domino's Pizza, LLC, wrote to GoodAsYou to say,

“Thank you for bringing these to our attention. I don’t have the words to say how repulsed I am by this – other than to say that these two individuals do not represent that 125,000 people in 60 countries who work hard every day to make good food and provide great customer service. I’ve turned this over to our security department. We will find them. There are far too many clues that will allow us to determine their location quite easily.”
 

“After the PCA (Peanut Corporation of America) plant, you had all the employees saying [the PCA facility] was a dump. It would have been nice for them to say that before nine people died.”

That’s what I told a student reporter for the Kansas State Collegian in this morning’s issue.

The reporter, Tyler Sharp, has been working on a story about Manhattan’s own American Institute of Baking, the auditor at the center of the PCA Salmonella fiasco, for weeks, and had trouble finding anyone to talk. After a March 6, 2009 article in the N.Y. Times sorta shattered the myth of third-party food safety audits, Tyler figured the homegrown story would be a no-brainer. Except he couldn’t get anyone to talk.

Since the release of the Times article, AIB now requires a minimum of two days or longer to complete an inspection at a food processing facility. AIB has also announced it will change the name of its Good Manufacturing Practices inspection certificates from “Certificate of Achievement” to “Recognition of Achievement.”

Is that like Homer Simpson winning the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence?

I told Tyler, the reporter,

“Third-party food audits, like restaurant inspection, are a snapshot in time. They are not indicative of what happens day in and day out. It doesn’t really tell you much. There are some audits that are OK. It depends on the auditor. My concern is that — and I have done a lot of work with farmers and producers and companies — what you really want is to help people become better with food safety, whereas an audit is just a checklist that penalizes people. That doesn’t necessarily help people get better with food safety.”

The third-party food safety audit scheme that processors and retailers insisted upon is no better than a financial Ponzi scheme. The vast number of facilities and suppliers means audits are required, but people have been replaced by paper. Audits, inspections, training and systems are no substitute for developing a strong food safety culture, farm-to-fork, and marketing food safety directly to consumers rather than the local/natural/organic hucksterism is a way to further reinforce the food safety culture.

Costco, a retail store, which previously limited AIB’s inspections to its bakery vendors, has now instructed suppliers to not use AIB at all.

“The American Institute of Baking is bakery experts,” said R. Craig Wilson, the top safety official at Costco. “But you stick them in a peanut butter plant or in a beef plant, they are stuffed.”

Or as Mansour Samadpour of Seattle says,

“The contributions of third-party audits to food safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills to education.”

During the Bite Me ’09 road trip, a very prominent food safety colleague told a very public audience that he wasn’t so impressed when a company hired a chief food safety dude after the poop had hit the fan.

Me thinks he was talking about Maple Leaf Foods, a Canadian company doing $5.5 billion a year in sales that decided it needed a chief food safety officer after killing 21 people with its listeria-laden deli meats last fall.

On March 25, 2009, Maple Leaf announced it was launching an external company blog at http://blog.mapleleaf.com. The first posting, "The Journey to Food Safety Leadership," is a letter written by President and CEO, Michael McCain.

Anything mentioning Journey should be banned. So many times while flipping the radio during the Bite Me ’09 3600-mile roadtrip, a Journey song would come on. And they’re on some new ad. Horrible, horrible music.

So it’s apt that Maple Leaf Foods chose a Journey to food safety because like the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, they are all aggressively mediocre.

The letter from McCain is not a blog post: it’s a missive that needs some serious editing for brevity. There’s been a couple of other posts that run the gamut from boring to pedantic. My group has written a paper on what makes a good blog post. McCain may want to check it out.

McCain and his food safety hire, Randy Huffman, are apparently touring the editorial boards of the remaining newspapers in Canada as a prelude to parliamentary hearings that begin next week on the future of Canada's food safety system.

“We are going to be advocating more regulation, not less. More-stringent protocols, not less-stringent protocols. We're going to be advocating more transparency and a stronger role for government, not a reduced role.”

Of course they are. Just like leafy green growers and the dude from Kellogg’s. Isn’t it embarrassing when industry – the ones who make a profit – says, we can’t do this ourselves, we need a babysitter.?

He (McCain) was accompanied by the company's new chief food safety officer, Randy Huffman, whose appointment and position are being touted as evidence of Maple Leaf's responsiveness to the crisis.

I’ll defer to my very prominent food safety colleague.

McCain also told the Globe and Mail this morning,

“We have to be candid and open and honest to the Canadian public, as does the industry and government. In the world of food safety we can do the very best job we can, but zero risk is not achievable based on what we know today.”

Dude, I co-wrote a book called Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk back in 1997 that said zero-risk was unachievable and consumers actually don’t want that. They just want to know that whoever is in charge is doing what can be reasonably expected to reduce risk. Twelve years later and McCain feels it necessary to lecture the Canadian public about this stuf? Had McCain really never heard about the 1998 outbreak of listeria associated with Sara Lee hot dogs?

Back to the questions the Globe editorial board apparently forgot to ask while fawning over McCain: should Maple Leaf products contain warning labels for pregnant women and old folks; why aren’t Maple Leaf listeria results publicly available; and who knew what when in the days leading up to the Aug. 2008 recall?
 

The Hills is probably the worst thing on TV. My 14-year-old daughter watched the Hills marathons while in Florida with us last August. Now we watch it on DVR, Katie’s totally hooked, and daughter Courtlynn doesn’t even watch it.

With a baby, there’s a lot of bad TV on in the background.

On tonight’s episode LC and Stephanie go into some restaurant and there’s an A in the window. So yeah for restaurant inspection disclosure.

And someone tried to speak French during the episode. Amy said it was horrible.
 

I knew it was time to change things when new students repeatedly asked, “what’s a listserv?”

The four listservs – FSnet, Agnet, Animalnet and FFnet – are going to be collapsed into a daily publication called bites (below, sorta as shown) by the end of the month.

The text versions of all four listservs, as well as FFnet, are going to disappear immediately, although they will still be available through the archives at foodsafety.ksu.edu.

I have to focus my activities. And the level of sponsorship has declined. However, once bites is up and rolling, new opportunities for sponsorship will be available.

The best way to receive breaking news is to subscribe to barfblog.com. RSS feeds for immediate news will be available once the bites.ksu.edu site is up and running.

Two co-owners of the Yaman Restaurant, a St. Catharines, Ontario, restaurant linked to a 2007 E. coli outbreak, were fined $7,500 each for selling food that made customers sick.

The problems started when Asaad and Daoud continued to run their business on May 19, 2007, despite the fact water to the restaurant was cut off due to a water-main break.

The restaurant was shut down by the region that month after several people got sick, but reopened with a clean bill of health in August that year.

The owners also pleaded guilty on March 4 to failing to provide hot and cold running water in the food-preparation area of the restaurant.
 

The Centers for Disease Control reported today that foodborne illness remains a significant public health issue in the United States, and that, “fundamental problems with bacterial and parasitic contamination are not being resolved.”

Douglas Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, says that more training, testing and inspecting is not the answer.

"There are way too many people getting sick," Powell said. "The CDC data show existing efforts to reduce foodborne illness have stalled. We need new messages using new media to really create a culture that values microbiologically safe food."

Powell publishes barfblog.com and conducts research on human food safety behavior from farm-to-fork. He can be reached by phone at 785-317-0560, or e-mail dpowell@k-state.edu.

His bio is at
http://www.k-state.edu/media/mediaguide/bios/powellbio.html
 

As the odometer hit 2,000 miles, Amy asked what it was like to travel when my kids were young. I said when they were 4-months-old like Sorenne, they just slept all the time.

Sorenne didn’t sleep all the time.

And then it occurred to me that when my eldest, the 21-year-old, was 4-months-old, I didn’t have a car. I was a student and didn’t drive anywhere. Those other kids who slept all the time had a sister in the backseat to help take care of them.

About 3,000 miles, I told Amy to slap me upside the head the next time I suggested such a road trip.

Bite Me ’09 – five talks, 3,600 miles in 12 days, some golf and some beach – wrapped up with a fury of talks and mileage, Monday in Florida, Tuesday in Nashville, Wednesday in Springdale, Arkansas, with an encore at Wal-Mart HQ in Bentonville and a lovely drive home through the back roads of Kansas with the prairie on fire (ranchers burn grasslands in Kansas for weed control and to encourage new growth).

My short message in various forms was this:

The third-party food safety audit scheme that processors and retailers insisted upon is no better than a financial Ponzi scheme. The vast number of facilities and suppliers means audits are required, but people have been replaced by paper. Audits, inspections, training and systems are no substitute for developing a strong food safety culture, farm-to-fork, and marketing food safety directly to consumers rather than the local/natural/organic hucksterism is a way to further reinforce the food safety culture.

Thanks for all the great hospitality from the various folks along the way and the engaging conversations.

‘Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin on.’
 

A Colorado dairy has been shut down after 11 people were sickened by campylobacter, believed to be associated with the consumption of raw, unpasteurized milk, reports The Denver Post.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has shut down the Kinikin Corner Dairy LLC after 11 people were sickened by campylobacter, a common food-borne bacteria. State authorities say at least 10 people who have gotten sick since March 10 reported drinking raw milk, eight of them getting milk from Kinikin…The dairy has been ordered to stop raw-milk distribution until further notice.

A table of raw dairy outbreaks is available here, and an op-ed Doug and Brae wrote, here.
 

Well done Kansas City. The Kansas City Health Department has recognized those food service establishments, 55 in total, who have gone above and beyond in terms of sanitation and food safety. Recipients of this award will definitely benefit by getting more business simply because people enjoy clean and sanitary restaurants. Do you blame them? The Kansas City Star writes:

The recipients of the department’s Fifth Annual “Grade A Food Excellence Award” for 2008 winners include full-scale restaurants, fast-food establishments, school cafeterias, convenience stores and grocery stores, among others.

The award is valid for one year.

The winners include Arby’s on Oxford Avenue in the Northland, Bluestem in Westport, Culver’s Frozen Custard and ButterBurgers on State Line Road, Kansas City Marriott Country Club Plaza’s Café Express and Kansas City Marriott Downtown’s Lilly’s, Paul’s Drive-in on Blue Ridge Boulevard, Popeyes Famous Chicken and Biscuits on State Line Road, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory at Union Station, Russell Stover Candies on 51st Street, and Sylvia’s Deli on Washington Street.

“When you go in a restaurant you look for good quality in the food, good service, but most of all cleanliness and my deli is clean,” said Sylvia Raya, owner of Sylvia’s Deli at 1746 Washington St., which will celebrate its fifth anniversary in June. “From day one I was determined to get this award and my employees worked very hard for it as well.”

All food establishments in Kansas City are inspected regularly by the Health Department, and if they are open it means that they have passed their inspections.

But the establishments recognized with this award have substantially exceeded the standards set in the Food Code, fully endorsing employee education and training.

Criteria include:

At least one person in the facility must have successfully completed the department’s food manager course or be ServSafe certified.

High risk facilities (those with large and complicated menus) cannot have more than three critical violations, medium risk facilities (fast food operations and bistros) cannot have more than two critical violations, and low risk facilities (like street vendors or convenience stores with one or two fresh prepared products) cannot have any critical violations in the calendar year for the award.

No violations may be repeat violations from the calendar year.

At least I didn’t show up naked.

That was the general consensus from my talk in Ponte Vedra, Florida, with food industry types on Monday.

The assigned title was, Are We There Yet? – Where Are We? How Did We Get Here? Where Do We Go from Here? and was supposed to be a compressed history of food safety since the 1993 Jack-in-the-Box outbreak and how, 16 years later, the U.S. is in a food safety mess.

My talk was somewhat random – I blame it on  baby brain – and found myself going back to the food safety debates of the mid-1990s. It’s like those never happened, and every new outbreak is an unexpected crisis.

I’m old.

Old enough to remember this 1980 Talking Heads song, which seemed particularly apt, given the title of my talk and predicaments of today. From the song, Once in a Lifetime:

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground

And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!...what have I done?

If you ask nice, maybe I’ll make you a mixed tape.

Amy, Sorenne and I then hustled out of 80 F weather in Florida in shorts and sandals for what turned into an 11 hour drive to Franklin, Tennessee, complete with a snowstorm. I’m the 8:15 a.m. entertainment at a regional Association of Food and Drug Officials meeting and get to share my dislike of third-party food safety audits.

And I’ll be dressed.
 

As a follow-up to the Spicy Salmonella post, EDS Wrap and Roll Foods LLC has recalled chicken egg rolls for potential Salmonella contamination, according to the USDA news release.

The egg rolls, sold to restaurants throughout California, contain spice recalled by Union International Food Co.  

[The company] is recalling approximately 12,460 pounds of frozen chicken egg roll products because they contain black pepper spice products that may be linked to a multi-state outbreak of salmonellosis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

Just another example of the importance of knowing your supplier.
 

The New York Times picked up on the burgeoning food safety conspiracy theory business that’s been flooding the Intertubes.

There’s been a lot of outbreaks of foodborne illness and a lot of people barfing. So politicians have been busy bill-making bees, with numerous proposals before the U.S. House and Senate.

As the Times story put it,

“… small farmers, who are most accountable for their food's freshness and health, may suffer the heaviest burden under proposed new food rules. … Small farmers argue that they are already much more accountable to their customers for the quality of their product than are mass-production facilities, and that they will be crushed under the weight of well-meaning laws aimed at large industrial offenders.”

Farmers, regardless of size, are accountable for food’s freshness and health, and more importantly, the microbial food safety of that food. Farmers, big and small, are accountable to their customers. Small is not better, and there is no evidence that smaller is safer. Small, local, organic, whatever, can be microbiologically safe, but that requires attention to sources of dangerous microorganisms and effective measures to reduce levels of risk – regardless of farm size.

And before someone chimes in with the smaller-is-easier-to-trace-and-contain line, there is no evidence to support that argument other than wishful thinking. To make an effective comparison, the number of illnesses per conventional or local/small/organic meal consumed would have to be calculated. And because a lot more people eat, say, conventional tomatoes compared to local/small/organic tomatoes, illnesses with conventional product are more likely to be detected. The data simply is not available to make any meaningful comparison.

What can be said is that local/small/organic is a lifestyle choice. And like any lifestyle choice, go for it but play safe. Try not to make people barf  and even embrace evidence-based microbiologically safe food. Sales will probably increase.

Back to the story. Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association, said,

"Organic standards specifically say you are supposed to cultivate the wild land on your farm, and having the area filter water has a lot of benefits. One of the principles is just that -- we're going to farm in a way that's not disruptive to nature."

Farming is not natural; any type of farming is disruptive to nature. So produce food in a way that minimizes the impact on the natural environment, and doesn’t make people barf. But that isn’t what organic is about. As Katija and I showed in our 2004 paper, organic guidelines could be adjusted to incorporate microbial food safety standards, but as they stand, organic standards are a specification for growing organic -- not microbiologically safe -- food.

The best and most dangerous mythology in the story is this:

Critics say the rules unfairly penalize small farmers who grow crops and raise cattle on the same farm, while failing to address what they believe is the root of the E. coli problem -- large, mismanaged feedlots that cram cattle together and spew waste runoff.

A percentage of all ruminants carry E. coli O157:H7. Feedlots are an easy target. But there are lots of outbreaks. Like E. coli O157:H7 in spinach in 2006 that sickened 200 and killed at least three. The source of the E. coli O157:H7 in the transitional organic spinach was a neighboring cow-calf operation – not a feedlot.

Any bill that gets past the discussion stage will be considerably modified and even if passed into law will accomplish … nothing. Conspiracy theories are fun, as is busy bee bill making, but will either result in fewer sick people? Growers, processors, retailers, restaurants and consumers should do what they can today to produce microbiologically safe food.

Kensington Market in Toronto, Canada is a great place to shop, but with repeated rodent issues, may not be the place to eat. The National Post reveals that five businesses within blocks of each other in the Kensington area have been shut down and fined.

One of the closed establishments, Fong On Foods Ltd. was closed March 2 and fined $25,000 after being convicted on charges of food contamination and cockroach infestation.

Jim Chan, manager of healthy environments at Toronto Public Health, said fines can balloon from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands on repeat offences.

“In this case, the operator did not maintain the level of compliance after the first closure on Sept. 5, 2008. Fines are usually higher on repeat offences.”

The rodent-popular area has received a lot of media attention, largely due to consumer cell phone pictures of rats in windows (see image, right from blogTO). 
 

Amy’s a French professor so I get to hang out with a bunch of folks in Modern Languages. And she speaks French to baby Sorenne, who probably understands more than I do. I’ve taught Amy how to use a digital