With any restaurant inspection disclosure system, one of the overriding objectives is a measurable reduction in foodborne illnesses. The question is: does putting an A on the front of a restaurant mean fewer people barf?

WNYC reports this morning that a 2003 study by two economists found that after letter grades were introduced in Los Angeles, there was a 20 per cent decline in hospital admissions for foodborne illness.

In the world of public health, that was a dramatic result. Yet this study is the only academic work to date that shows a connection between restaurant letter grades and rates of foodborne illness.

There’s a reason there’s only been one such paper: causation is not the same as correlation.

Katie Filion (left, pretty much as shown) gave a departmental seminar this morning – we’re both in diagnostic medicine and pathobiology in the veterinary college at Kansas State University -- critiquing the paper and presenting some results from her year in New Zealand developing a national restaurant inspection disclosure system.

Filion said there was no accounting for different sources of, say, salmonella (pets cause it too), no accounting for whether food was contaminated at home, in the field or in a restaurant, and no accounting for statistical validity. There may have been a reduction of hospital admissions once inspection scores were posted, but that could have been due to increased awareness, a correlation of interest, but not causation.

A philosophy of transparency and openness underlies the efforts of many local health units across North America in seeking to make available the results of restaurant inspections. Such public displays of information may help bolster overall awareness of food safety amongst staff and the public -- people routinely talk about this stuff. It's all about that food safety culture.

The New Zealand stuff? Katie can talk about that after she defends her thesis.
 

Kansas State University came out with their version of the Chapman and me and other Blue Rodeo groupies study this morning.

Posting graphical, concise food safety information sheets in the kitchens of restaurants can help reduce dangerous food safety practices and create a workplace culture that values safe food, according to a new paper co-authored by Kansas State University's Doug Powell.

The study, "Assessment of food safety practices of food service food handlers: testing a communication intervention," was published in the June issue of the Journal of Food Protection. It was authored by Ben Chapman, assistant professor of food safety at the North Carolina State University; Powell, associate professor of food safety at K-State; Katie Filion, master's student in biomedical science at K-State; and Tiffany Eversley and Tanya MacLaurin of the University of Guelph in Canada.

It's the first time that a communication intervention using food safety info sheets has been validated to work, Powell said.

Powell and Chapman came up with the idea for food safety info sheets to promote discussion and improve food safety behaviors while playing hockey at the University of Guelph in 2003. Chapman was a graduate student at the time.

"Chapman and I played hockey a lot, and there was a bar and restaurant that overlooked the one ice surface where we often had after-hockey food safety meetings with our industry, provincial and federal government colleagues," Powell said. "We had all this food safety information, and the manager of the restaurant was into food safety, so we thought that if daily sports pages are posted on the walls and doors of washroom stalls, why not post engaging food safety information in kitchens for restaurant employees to read."

As part of his doctoral research, Chapman partnered with a food service company in Canada and placed small video cameras in unobtrusive spots around eight food-service kitchens that volunteered to participate in the study. There were as many as eight cameras in each kitchen, which recorded directly to computer files that were reviewed by Chapman and others.

The work built on other direct food safety observational studies conducted at K-State and published in the British Food Journal in 2009.

Food safety info sheets, highlighting the importance of hand washing or preventing cross-contamination, for example, were then introduced into the kitchens, and video was again collected. The researchers found that cross-contamination events decreased by 20 percent, and hand-washing attempts increased by 7 percent.

The increases show the information sheets work, Powell said. "Food safety messages like 'Employees must wash hands' signs in bathrooms just don't work," he said.

Since September 2006 more than 150 food safety info sheets have been produced and are available for anyone to use, http://www.foodsafetyinfosheets.com. The website has a search function and offers automatic email alerts and RSS feeds.

K-State's Filion coded much of the video as an undergraduate student researcher in Canada. MacLaurin, who collaborated on the research, was born on a farm/ranch in Kansas and received all her degrees from K-State before joining the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the University of Guelph in 1991, where she subsequently collaborated with Powell.

The paper and study abstract are available at:


http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2010/00000073/00000006/art00013
 

During a drive to Kansas City, MO I remember Doug telling me about the abundance of methamphetamine labs in the Midwest, and to keep an eye out for stray bathtubs on the side of the highway – I guess that’s where the meth is made.

Bathtubs and fast food kitchens it turns out. kfvs12.com reports that a Cape Girardeau, MO Sonic restaurant was closed after there were allegations of a shift manager manufacturing methamphetamine inside the kitchen.

Dennie Bratcher, 27, faces charges of burglary and manufacturing meth in the case. According to Cape Girardeau Police Sgt. Jason Selzer, officers found Bratcher, still wearing his Sonic uniform, inside the business after responding to a burglar alarm. Bratcher apparently worked a night shift but went back to the restaurant after closing time.

According to Selzer, Bratcher told officers he planned to make the meth on the roof, but he opted for the kitchen because it was too cold outside.

Environmental Public Health Specialist Amy Morris said the incident has forced the restaurant to completely restock the store,

"We're talking everything from sugar packets to hamburgers, to straws to the ice cream in the machines."

Morris also stressed that the store would have to be "100% safe" before the store would be allowed to reopen.

Sonic officials have offered no comment.

Missouri-born Brad Pitt (right) would be so disappointed.
 

This international research stuff can be challenging to co-ordinate. Not the supervision or the actual research, more getting all the various agencies, living arrangements and insurance lined up.

And I have to be more sensitive – I wanted to call this blog post, The shocking, untold, no-holds barred story of how Katie Filion went from Sault St. Marie, to Guelph, to Manhattan (Kansas) to New Zealand.

The Kansas State University press release that went out this morning said:

Katie Filion, a master's student in biomedical science, has a thesis project with global implications. She is investigating New Zealand's options for a national food business or restaurant hygiene grading system. She is working on the yearlong project with a $20,000 grant from the New Zealand Food Safety Authority.

Filion is doing her research in New Zealand and will return to K-State in May 2010 to complete her thesis with adviser Doug Powell, K-State associate professor of food safety.

New Zealand's piecemeal use of grading systems means that it's difficult for diners to check out an establishment's food safety record. Filion said a consistent grading system throughout New Zealand will make consumers less confused and will bolster confidence in the country's inspection systems. And with a population of about 4 million, New Zealand is an ideally sized country for such a project, Filion said.

"No one has determined the most effective way to present inspection results to the public but a good system has several characteristics," Filion said. "It should have clear guidelines about what earns a good or bad grade and should communicate to diners the risk of eating at a particular restaurant."

Here's some more of the tale:

Katie left the Soo to do undergraduate research in food science at the University of Guelph. There, for reasons I’ve never fully understood, she and another friend started working for Chapman while he was finishing his PhD.

We met a couple of times, talked a couple of times, but Chapman said she was good and interested in restaurant inspection disclosure stuff – and graduate school – so I gave her some additional work. Then she graduated she spent eight months visiting farmers in Ontario as part of an on-farm food safety program.

Katie decided graduate school was next and I said, come to K-State. Meanwhile, while Amy and I were in New Zealand last summer (Kansas summer, not NZ summer) I worked out a possible arrangement – that Ben had initiated -- for a grad student to work with NZFSA on restaurant inspection disclosure procedures.

She was supposed to go in Jan. 2009, but too many details needed to be filled in. Rather than facing winter in the Soo, Katie ventured to Kansas, and helped out around here for five months. She started contributing to barfblog and her writing got better.

In May, it was off to Wellington, NZ, and she seems to be doing great; even got a review paper published, which just came out.

The ways restaurant inspection disclosure systems reach consumers with food safety information was the topic of a review article that Filion and Powell published recently in the Journal of Foodservice. Because diners choose restaurants in part for their perception of the establishment's hygiene, Filion and Powell suggest that restaurants would be wise to market themselves to potential customers in terms of their food safety inspection records.

Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.

Abstract
The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.