Food safety doesn't just happen in English - so why aren't restaurant inspection disclosure results available in other languages?
You’d figure that getting stuff translated into other languages would be a breeze, since I have an in with the modern languages department. But to do it in real-time is a bit messy.
Whether it’s a recall, an inspection report or a warning label, not everyone who eats in the U.S. is fluent in English. That’s why our food safety infosheets are now available weekly in French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Debbie Pacheco of blogTO writes today that the garbage disposal calendar Toronto distributes has sections in various languages, so why, then, is something as important as Toronto's DineSafe guidelines only available in English?
One restaurateur told Pacheco he's interpreted food preparation instructions for his staff before. "If you want that traditional food, it's usually the older people who don't necessarily speak English that cook it." He manages his kitchen and is certified in food handling. The city requires that someone with a food handling certificate supervise the kitchen at all times while it's operating.
Mebrak, who's been with Cleopatra restaurant for nine years, put it best. "It's important people really understand how to handle food. It's about safety for everyone."
Toronto takes on feds, province, issues own food safety agenda
I hear from local public health officials all the time, and the ones in Canada repeatedly say the single food inspection agency -- known creatively as, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency – sucks.
The provincial regulators also suck.
So after years of taking it, the City of Toronto is once again trailblazing when it comes to serving the public – those who end up barfing from bad food – and has come up with its own idea of a food safety system that serves people.
Robert Cribb of the Toronto Star reports this morning that in a series of three reports to be presented to Toronto city council on Monday (available at http://www.toronto.ca/health/moh/foodsecurity.htm), foodborne illness in Toronto is rampant and that in order to have fewer people barfing:
• Ontario should consider compensating food handlers who are too sick to come to work due to "gastrointestinal illness;"
• Ontario and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency should provide "full and timely disclosure of the food safety performance of all food premises
they inspect;” and,
• mandatory food handler training and certification, as recommended in the Justice Haines report of 2004 (that was my contribution).
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A related story maintains that cases of foodborne illness began to fall almost immediately after Toronto began making restaurant inspection results public in 2001.
John Filion, chair of the city's board of health, said it is the clearest evidence yet of the public health benefits of transparency.
Good for Toronto, especially when the feds and the province leave the locals out to dry on outbreaks of foodborne illness. In the Aug. 2008 outbreak of listeria linked to Maple Leaf deli meats, Toronto health types said they had plenty of evidence something was amiss in July, but CFIA and others refused to go public until Aug. 17, 2008. So with a federal listeria inquiry set to begin Monday, and Maple Leaf all focused on federal regulations, how are Maple Leaf executives going to handle pesky local health units like Toronto – the ones who actually do the work, uncover outbreaks and create their own headlines.
KATIE FILION: Rodents run amuck at Toronto Loblaw's
A Loblaw’s Supermarket in Toronto, Canada, is closed following a customer complaint regarding a mouse inside the store.
Toronto Public Health (TPH) officials closed the store last night, and already Dinesafe, a website designed to disclose inspection results for food premises in the Toronto area, has updated its most recent inspection findings to include infractions discovered last night, such as:
• failure to ensure food is not contaminated/adulterated;
• failure to prevent rodent infestation; and,
• failure to maintain hazardous food(s) at 4C (40F).
According to Dinesafe, the Dupont St. Loblaw’s has passed the last ten TPH inspections, dating back to April 2007. But are restaurant inspections a good indicator of the quality of an establishment? Or simply a brief snapshot of a food premise at one point in time? And are web-based disclosure systems like Dinesafe the most effective way to communicate inspection results to consumers?
News reports like the ones in the Toronto Sun or Globe and Mail, websites like Dinesafe, and blogs like this or blogTO, get the information out there to consumers. What I am interested in is which of these methods is the most effective.
