Supermarket Guru says stickers on clamshells a good food safety idea to go
Supermarket Guru picked up on our food safety stickers for takeout food and suggested it was one way retailers could turn food safety into a competitive advantage, and wrest takeout business from nearby restaurants.
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Which was exactly one of our thoughts when we began experimenting with food safety stickers about five years ago.
While SupermarketGuru.com doesn’t know the full details of their proposed label, we suggest that besides basic date and serving information, it also clearly states whether a food might contain allergens like peanuts or gluten. In our opinion, supermarkets have failed so far to truly differentiate themselves in prepared foods and easy takeout. This is one value-added step that could help food stores retain the takeout volume that fell in their laps when the economy cratered, and people curbed their restaurant visits. They didn’t really earn the windfall, but they got it, and now they have to address consumer concerns about food safety in order to burnish their image as takeout sources.
Perhaps a special opportunity for this approach is in the small-format stores modeled after Tesco’s Fresh & Easy, which emphasize takeout offerings, and are already battling convenience stores, which are stepping up their meal programs. Safe food-handling stickers could add professionalism to the displays and confidence in consumers, and make the prepared foods section a more frequent destination.
We'll work with anyone who is interested in developing the sticker concept for their own food business -- large or small. Any new sticker would have a different phone number and website than those depicted (below) and would be based on research tailored to a specific operation.
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Safe food handling labels on take-out containers can help restaurants stand apart in the marketplace
As take-out food continues to increase in popularity, new research from Kansas State University has found that safe handling labels can help restaurants and food providers distinguish themselves in a competitive marketplace.
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"With leftovers, people need information the moment they pull that container or clamshell package from the fridge," said Doug Powell, a K-State associate professor of food safety. "How long has it been in the fridge? Is it still safe? Our approach was to provide practical information, right on the container."
Powell, along with former graduate student Brae Surgeoner and Tanya MacLurin of the University of Guelph in Canada, designed a safe food handling label for take-out food after consulting numerous experts and consumers (right; phone number and url don't work anymore -- dp). They then worked with 10 restaurants in Ontario to provide food safety stickers for take-out food and subsequently interviewed managers about the utility of the stickers.
For the purpose of this research, takeout was defined as food procured from a casual dining restaurant -- in other words, a sit-down restaurant -- but eaten elsewhere, including food ordered as takeout and leftover food packaged to be taken home.
The researchers concluded that such a safe food handling label for take-out food was a promising value-added investment for restaurant operators as long as the stickers were used consistently and employees supported the initiative.
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"We strive to provide the right food safety message in the right setting," Powell said. "Hand washing information should go over sinks and the back door of toilet stalls. Food preparation information should go in the back kitchen. Stickers with safe food handling information should go on the clamshell containers that people take home and put in the fridge. That's where the learning moment is."
The results are published in the October 2009 issue of Food Protection Trends.
The abstract is below.
Assessing management perspectives of a safe food-handling label for casual dining take-out food
01.oct.09
Food Protection Trends, Vol 29, No 10, pages 620-625
Brae V. Surgeoner, Tanya MacLaurin, Douglas A. Powell
Abstract
Faced with the threat of food safety litigation in a highly competitive industry, foodservice establishments must take proactive steps to avoid foodborne illness. Consumer demand for convenience food, coupled with evidence that consumers do not always engage in proper food-safety practices, means that take-out food from casual dining restaurant establishments can lead to food safety concerns. A prescriptive safe food-handling label was designed through a Delphi-type exercise. A purposive sample of 10 foodservice managers was then used to evaluate the use of the label on take-out products. Semi-structured in-depth interviews focused on the level of concern for food safety, the value of labelling take-out products, perceived effectiveness of the provided label, and barriers to implementing a label system. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed, and the data was interpreted using content analysis to identify and develop overall themes and sub-themes related to the areas of inquiry. It was found that labeling is viewed as a beneficial marketing tool by which restaurants can be differentiated from their competitors based on their proactive food safety stance.
Leftovers should not be left outside - or you may barf
Nine children and three women from a village in the Galilee who attended a wedding celebration Sunday ended up Monday evening at the emergency room with diarrhea, fierce stomachache and vomiting. The Jerusalem Post reports that seven of the children and two of the women had to be hospitalized for observation.
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They were diagnosed with food poisoning tracked back to the "doggie bags" taken and eaten at home. Amil Aga, epidemiological supervisor at the hospital, reached the conclusion that the leftovers had been left outside rather than in refrigeration for several hours until the extended family got home.
Hospital director-general Dr. Masad Barhoom warned people that during the hot summer months, store raw and prepared food under proper conditions to reduce the risk of food poisoning.
(The sticker, right, was a prototype; phone number and web site won't work; but we can come up with a new one -- dp).
Stickers source watermelons to California farm
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that at a farm in Manteca, in San Joaquin County, workers smack labels onto watermelons freshly cut from the vine, each sticker bearing a unique string of letters and numbers that identifies where they were harvested.
Ryan Van Groningen of Van Groningen & Sons Farms, which sells watermelons under the Yosemite Fresh brand, said,
"With food safety as big as it is, we can give each watermelon its own code so a consumer can check on the Internet to see where it is grown.”
This new code, called the HarvestMark, is being developed by the Redwood City startup YottaMark Inc. at a time when Congress is considering food-safety legislation that could make some type of tracking system mandatory.
In advance of any legal mandate, a few growers have started putting HarvestMark codes on products like plastic-packaged grapes and strawberries, as well as watermelons.
The idea is to enable a consumer to type the 16-digit tracking code into a locator field at HarvestMark.com to learn where the product was grown. Depending on the grower's records and what the farm chooses to reveal, the system could detail the date and part of the field where the product originated.
Great idea.
A decade ago, I advised the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers – whose cluster tomatoes still dominate supermarket shelves in Florida in the middle of summer – to do something similar, to market their food safety efforts directly to the concerned consumer.
For other produce producers, forget government babysitters and the non-niceties of offending other growers … growers who maybe aren’t so good at food safety.
Go further. Put a url on the sticker so concerned shoppers can check out a web site with video, not just about where a commodity was grown, but about food safety standards, and real-time test results for water quality and product sampling.
And then market it.
Stickers for takeaway food a hit in Dubai
Food such as takeout or takeaway, that is initially prepared in a restaurant but is consumed in an individual’s home, may be a venue to target with safe-food handling messages. Earlier this decade, both Chicago-based Francesca Restaurants and Boston-based Buca Di Beppo Restaurants reported anecdotal success placing food safety labels on containers of takeout food.
In 2004, my group undertook research to:
• examine restaurant managements’ experience of using a safe food-handling label on takeout food;
• explore managements’ food safety concerns;
• determine the value of consumer safe-food handling labels to managers;
• establish perceived label effectiveness; and,
• identify challenges with implementation.
For our study, we defined take-out as food procured from a casual dining restaurant (i.e. sit-down restaurant) but eaten elsewhere, including food ordered as take-out and leftover food packaged to be taken home. The label we developed is right (above) and left (note, the phone line and web site don’t work anymore).
The research paper describing that work has been accepted by a peer-reviewed scientific journal and will be published in the near future.
However, the public health types in Dubai discovered over the weekend the same thing we found: most consumers and restaurateurs like the idea.
Our bites.ksu.edu Dubai correspondent contacted Ben and me about stickers on takeaway, and we sent along what we had developed. Today, the Khaleej Times reports,
The Dubai Municipality is planning to encourage all restaurants in the emirate to issue advisories to consumers on safe handling of takeaway food.
The decision follows a similar initiative by a popular south Indian restaurant group that attaches red stickers to its takeaway bags at its two outlets in Dubai. A municipality official applauded the group’s move and said the civic body intended to support such initiatives by other restaurants as well.
Director of Food Control Department, Khalid Mohammed Sherif, told the Khaleej Times,
“We are encouraging more and more food outlets to put such messages along with takeaway food to ensure that the customer handles the food properly. We will be providing all of them with modified instructions for customers to handle food taken away.”
He said the modified versions of the advisories will include the temperature at which food items have to be stored and the duration within which they have to be consumed, depending on the types of ingredients.
Below is a draft of the information intended for consumers.
Dubai restaurant requires signed disclaimer with purchase
What a cop-out.
After the tragic death of Nathan, 5, and his sister, Chelsea, 7, in connection with home-delivered Chinese food in June, the importance of food safety should have come into sharp focus for restaurateurs in Dubai.
On the off-chance that restaurant owners didn’t catch the news, the Dubai Municipality stepped up restaurant inspections and conducted a food safety awareness campaign under the banner "Food Safety is our Priority."
Establishments like Kempinski Hotel in Mall of the Emirates were given the opportunity to demonstrate to customers that food safety was indeed a priority.
Instead, as Gulf News reports,
“Hotel Kempinski in Mall of the Emirates is getting its customers to sign a disclaimer note stating that its restaurants would not be responsible for the quality of food once it is taken out of their premises.”
The disclaimer reads,
"Please note that the Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates takes no responsibility whatsoever for any food or beverage bought from the hotel or any outlets of the hotel for personal consumption.
"This is due to the fact that the Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates has no more control or any way of ascertaining the safety and hygienic condition of this food and beverage once outside the premises. Please sign the waiver below to indicate your acceptance of the terms stipulated.
"Otherwise the hotel is unable to permit any food or beverage to be purchased."
The establishment’s haughty and self-serving culture is absolutely disgusting and leaves me with very little faith in the safety of its food.
Another outlet, Calicut Paragon in Karama, invested their resources in stickers for take-out bags that advise consumers to eat their food within two hours of purchase—a step that suggests a shared responsibility for the safety of food and that I find a little more palatable.
I agree with this guy:
"I think it is completely unethical to make customers sign disclaimers like that. It is good to safeguard the business, but not at the cost of displeasing customers," said Ronald D'Souza, operations manager at Sofra Worldwide - a firm that owns restaurant chains like Gelato, NaanPlus and Uno Chicago Grill.
"From your side, you have to ensure that quality and hygiene standards are maintained at the highest levels. But as we are in the business of food, there is an element of risk that you must take," D'Souza said.
Kempinski Hotel should step up to the plate and recognize that selling microbiologically safe food is a good way to protect your business, and showing a commitment to food safety is a good way to promote it.
Websites on stickers so consumers know where their food is from: a cool idea 10 years later
About every 10 years I, briefly, become cool, at least in my own mind.
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In high school in the late 1970s, I played air bass in an air band called Tone Deaf for one memorable performance. I should have stuck with it; 30 years later, kids are shelling out millions to play air whatever in Guitar Hero.
In 1991, Nirvana came out with grunge, Canadian Neil Young was the godfather and my closet of plaid shirts otherwise known as Kenora dinner jackets was all the rage.
Today, Canadian Press predicted that in 2009, products from apples to chicken will carry codes purchasers can enter into a website for sourcing details. When I started working on the on-farm food safety program with the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers back in 1998, I said, hey, you growers are doing this great food safety stuff, you should at least put a url on those stickers so those shoppers who want to know can find out all about your great food safety program.
Guess it wasn’t cool enough.
