Helping Your Workers Stay Healthy During Cold and Flu Season

It’s February, and that can only mean one thing…it’s cold and flu season. It’s the time of the year when both your employees and guests might bring with them coughs and sneezes into the restaurant. So, how can you help your employees stay healthy during this time of the year?

The flu vaccine and diligent hygiene are important measures everyone should practice this time of the year to help reduce the spread of germs that can cause illness. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[1] (CDC) recommends the following actions:

1. Take the time to get a flu vaccine. According to the CDC, even though it is already February, it’s not too late to get a flu shot since flu activity can last until May.
2. Take everyday preventive actions to stop the spread of germs. This includes washing your hands often with soap and water, and if soap and water is not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.
3. Take flu antiviral drugs, if your doctor prescribes them.

Another important element to cold and flu prevention is to sanitize and clean frequently touched surfaces with products specifically designed to kill these viruses. At work and in our homes, we all touch a variety of surfaces throughout the day. From doorknobs, to kitchen and break room counters/tables, to light switches, germs that can cause illness are easily transferred from one person to the next via the surfaces we touch. This is why it is important to sanitize and clean both hard and soft surfaces frequently as well as objects such as restaurant menus. Also, always sanitize and disinfect food-preparation surfaces with a sanitizer and disinfectant specifically formulated for those surfaces. 

While you cannot prevent sick guests from coming into your restaurant, you can help your employees stay healthy by sharing with them these tips.

1. CDC Says Three Actions to Fight the Flu, http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/preventing.htm

Here's a REALLY Timely Repeat About Norovirus: What Impact Does It Have on Your Restaurant?

In the news right now there are widespread reports of Norovirus outbreaks in the United States. While these outbreaks may be affecting schools and healthcare facilities, we all know the impact a Norovirus outbreak can have on a restaurant. Though we first published this post in mid-December, we thought it was especially important to share it again with you now - it's a really good time to take a closer look at your food safety program to make sure you have measures in place to reduce the risk of norovirus. And so... 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are more than 250 different types of foodborne illnesses. Yet, norovirus is among the most common. In fact, norovirus is responsible for over 50 percent of foodborne illnesses in the United States. And looking at foodborne outbreaks over the last few years, foodservice establishments were the main source of these outbreaks, which are often related to an infected employee practicing poor personal hygiene and subsequently handling food. So what can you do to help ensure your restaurant doesn’t fall victim to a norovirus outbreak?

A strong food safety program that takes norovirus into consideration is critical. In the recent bulletin, “The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Food Safety Program,” I along with Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus and Dr. Elizabeth Bradshaw, both from North Carolina State University, take a closer look at norovirus and the preventive measures, including hand hygiene and surface sanitization, a restaurant can take to help reduce the spread of this foodborne illness.

Download Bulletin - The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Food Safety Program

Find additional Norovirus information and downloads to help build a strong food safety program.

The Future Looks Bright for Food Safety: The Cultivation of Human Norovirus Has Been Achieved!

Norovirus is one of the most common foodborne illnesses and is the leading cause of illness and outbreaks from contaminated food in the United States.  Leading health experts recommend hand hygiene and cleaning and disinfecting contaminated surfaces as two measures restaurant workers can take to reduce the transmission of norovirus. Yet, how do we know if the products we are using are effective in killing norovirus?

Laboratory Testing – Cultivating the Virus
In order to test product efficacy against human noroviruses (HuNoVs), we need to cultivate viruses in cells in laboratory conditions. Different from bacteria and fungi that grow in a Petri dish, which contains a medium such as food for their replication, viruses need alive host cells in order to replicate, or make copies of themselves. In some instances, we can keep some of these cells alive outside of the host organism, and under the right conditions, get viruses to infect these cells and replicate in a laboratory. Once this point is reached, it opens up enormous possibilities for research.

The major barrier in research and development of effective interventions for HuNoVs has been the lack of a robust and reproducible in vitro cultivation system. HuNoVs have been difficult to be cultivated in vitro despite numerous efforts over the last 40 years.

The lack of a reproducible culture system for HuNoVs has forced scientists researching norovirus to use surrogates for studies and for testing disinfectants and other products to show efficacy against the Human Norovirus. Many products available in the market today that claim Norovirus efficacy are based on tests using HuNoVs surrogates. However, despite several similarities surrogates have with HuNoVs, they are not the same.

A Breakthrough in Science
The good news, a group of scientists from Baylor College of Medicine have successfully cultured the human norovirus in intestinal cells. This culture system simulates the human intestinal epithelium, permits human host-pathogen studies of previously non-cultivatable pathogens, and allows the assessment of methods to prevent and treat HuNoV infections such as vaccines, therapeutics and other measures to control the virus in humans, including how we manage norovirus transmission. The new methodology has been tested in different research labs thorough the country and has shown reproducibility and viability.

Although it may take some time for the in-vitro methodology to be available at commercial labs, it is a first step towards measuring how effective disinfectants and food processes are in inactivating infectious HuNovs, which can lead to enhanced guidelines for preventing virus spread, and better products that show efficacy against HuNovs.

So what does this breakthrough in science mean to restaurant owners and operators? It means that as science advances so will your surface disinfecting and sanitizing products. Be sure to be aware of claims products make and ask questions about the safety and effectiveness of the products. You want to be certain the product has been tested against common viruses to ensure the safety of your employees and guests.

For more details, read:
Replication of human noroviruses in stem cell–derived human enteroids
BY KHALIL ETTAYEBI, SUE E. CRAWFORD, KOSUKE MURAKAMI, JAMES R. BROUGHMAN, UMESH KARANDIKAR, VICTORIA R. TENGE, FREDERICK H. NEILL, SARAH E. BLUTT, XI-LEI ZENG, LIN QU,BAIJUN KOU, ANTONE R. OPEKUN, DOUGLAS BURRIN, DAVID Y. GRAHAM, SASIREKHA RAMANI,ROBERT L. ATMAR, MARY K. ESTES
PUBLISHED ONLINE25 AUG 2016
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf5211

Our Top Blog Posts of 2016

When we set out to launch FoodSafeTruth.com earlier this year, our goal was to design a website that was the go-to source for information on topics impacting the foodservice industry. We wanted the site to be timely and relevant – information you could use and apply to your own restaurant operations.

One way we set out to accomplish this goal was by launching our blog Perspectives. Perspectives is designed to provide you with insights on topics ranging from foodborne illness outbreaks, to building a strong food safety program, to ways to enhance the guest experience.

As we enter 2017, our goal is to continue to deliver news and information you can use in your own operation. But first, let’s take a look at the Top 10 Blog Posts from 2016.

1. Selecting the Right Surface Sanitizer for Your Restaurant
2. How a Hand Hygiene Program Can Help Your Employees Stay Healthy and at Work
3. What Foodservice Workers Need to Know about the FDA Final Rule on Consumer Antibacterial Soaps
4. Foodborne Illness Outbreaks in Restaurants – By the Numbers
5. Is Your Restaurant Considered Clean?
6. Risk-Based Handwashing
7. Food Safety is Non-Negotiable
8. Norovirus – What Impact Does It Have on Your Restaurant?
9. Cleanliness is the Difference
10. September is Food Safety Month – Get the Facts

Norovirus: What Impact Does It Have on Your Restaurant?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are more than 250 different types of foodborne illnesses. Yet, norovirus is among the most common. In fact, norovirus is responsible for over 50 percent of foodborne illnesses in the United States. And looking at foodborne outbreaks over the last few years, foodservice establishments were the main source of these outbreaks, which are often related to an infected employee practicing poor personal hygiene and subsequently handling food. So what can you do to help ensure your restaurant doesn’t fall victim to a norovirus outbreak?

A strong food safety program that takes norovirus into consideration is critical. In the recent bulletin, “The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Food Safety Program,” I along with Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus and Dr. Elizabeth Bradshaw, both from North Carolina State University, take a closer look at norovirus and the preventive measures, including hand hygiene and surface sanitization, a restaurant can take to help reduce the spread of this foodborne illness.

Download Bulletin - The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Food Safety Program

Find additional Norovirus information and downloads to help build a strong food safety program.

Is Your Restaurant Considered Clean?

We have all heard the phrase, “cleanliness is next to godliness.” And for the foodservice industry, it could easily be, “cleanliness is next to success,” The cleanliness of you restaurant has a huge impact not only on your restaurant’s bottom line, but your guests’ overall experience as well.
So how can you ensure your restaurant’s cleanliness is meeting and possibly exceeding your guests’ expectations? There are specific signs of a clean restaurant. Does your restaurant exhibit all nine?

View the infographic, "9 Top Signs of a Clean Restaurant" to find out >

Lessons Learned: Using Television Cooking Shows to Teach about Food Safety

Turn on your television at any time during the day, and you are bound to find a cooking show on one of the channels. Whether it's a show dedicated to offering up helpful hints and recipes or a cooking competition, it is clear the concept of food is something that draws viewers in.

Yet, in between all the slicing and dicing and sautéing, are the chefs and professionals on your favorite shows following the best food safety practices?

A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior found that many of these programs miss the opportunity to model proper safety measures. Yes, this can be seen as a challenge to many, but researchers also took their learnings as an opportunity to identify steps toward improvements these shows should take. These included: food safety training, safe food handling practices and using food safety as a judging criteria. 

While this study may pertain to the home cook, there are some valuable takeaways that you can apply to your restaurant. These include:

1. Ensure a food safety training course is in place. Also, offer follow-up training to answer any questions and to make sure that food safety best practices are being followed.
2. Demonstrate and educate on safe food handling practices. This includes following proper cooking instructions and implementing processes to avoid cross contamination.
3. Follow up with employees and make sure they are following proper hand hygiene practices and washing hands at key moments.

Food safety is critical to the success of your restaurant. Use these tips to enhance your food safety program so your restaurant can set the standard for food safety.

Selecting the Right Surface Sanitizer for Your Restaurant

In 2012, Technomic asked 38,000 quick serve restaurant customers what were the most important factors they consider when visiting a restaurant. While food ranked at the top of the list, 88 percent of those surveyed said cleanliness was most important to them.

We know that many factors go into ensuring your restaurant is clean. However, did you know that using the right surface sanitizing products play an important role in not only the cleanliness of your restaurant, but the health of your employees and guests as well?

Selecting the Right Products
With so many surface sanitizing options out there, how do you select the right one for your restaurant? The following are key questions to ask when determining what product is right for your employees and guests.

Efficacy

• Does it kill pathogens prevalent in foodborne illness outbreaks, such as Norovirus, Salmonella and E.coli?
• How quickly does this product kill these pathogens (e.g. 30 seconds vs. 5 minutes)?
• Will the surface remain wet long enough to meet the required kill times (e.g. 30 seconds)? Or, will you need to re-wet the surface in order to achieve the required kill times (e.g. 5 to 10 minutes)?
• Is the product also an effective surface cleaner?
• Is the product effective on both hard and soft surfaces?

Safety

• Are there any precautionary statements on the product label – like must wash hands after use or hazard to humans and domestic animals?
• Is the product approved for use on food-contact surfaces? Or, are you required to rinse food-contact surfaces with potable water after using the product?
• Does the product contain harsh fumes that might irritate employees and guests?
• Is the product compatible with the surfaces and equipment you plan to use it on?
• Is it easy to use?

Sustainability

• Is the product certified by a third party, such as EPA Design for the Environment (DfE)?

 
While these may seem like many questions to consider, key thought leaders in sanitization encourage you to walk through all of them to make sure you are selecting the ideal surface sanitizer for your needs. In the end, you want to make sure your products have a strong combination of efficacy, safety and sustainability.   

What Foodservice Workers Need to Know About the FDA Final Rule on Consumer Antibacterial Soaps

Earlier this month, the FDA issued its Final Rule on antibacterial soap products marketed to consumers or made available for use in public settings. This ruling excludes antibacterial soaps used in foodservice settings, as well as hand sanitizers. In addition, while this rule only applies to a subset of active ingredients and products used outside of healthcare and food handling industries, there might be some confusion as to the regulation’s impact on the foodservice industry. 

The Important Role of Hand Hygiene Plays in Foodservice
Handwashing with soap and water is the first and most important step any restaurant worker can take to ensure the safety of food and reduce the risk of getting sick or making others sick. 

Whether it takes place on the farm where the food is being grown, or in the kitchen (at home or in a restaurant), hand hygiene is vital to preventing our food from becoming contaminated. Also, when people think about hand hygiene in the foodservice industry, they typically think about handwashing with soap and water. 

Antibacterial Soaps and the Foodservice Industry
While the FDA does not specify what type of soap – bland or antibacterial – for foodservice industry workers to use, antibacterial soaps are common.  

Antibacterial soaps are often used because they contain ingredients designed to kill germs on the skin, adding an extra level of protection from microbial contamination. In fact, a 2011 study, published in the Journal of Food Protection, compared bland and antibacterial soaps and found that antibacterial soaps did provide a statistically significant greater reduction in bacteria.

In addition, handwashing technique plays a critical role in reducing the transient, or illness-causing germs, on hands. Yet, oftentimes, handwashing technique is incorrect, and using an antibacterial soap helps kill germs missed by an ineffective washer. 

Download "Food Safety Hand Hygiene Regimen" Poster >

All in all, hand hygiene and using the right hand hygiene products play a critical role in food safety.

Risk-Based Handwashing

Changing behaviors within your current culture

The challenge of handwashing in foodservice is rooted in basic human behavior. If the would-be washer can see no reward, he or she becomes a non-washer; this is even true for managers. Handwashing simply becomes a matter of custom, comfort or convenience with no connection to the actual risk. The complexity of a sustainable solution results in operators attacking one barrier at a time, but a holistic approach has a much better chance of success.

Real issues abound. Barriers of language, culture, turnover, absenteeism, productivity, hand sink location, empty dispensers, skin irritation and training time frequently come up as challenges to handwashing at key moments. However, the reality is there is no measurement for a clean hand, no standards for frequency and seldom are employees disciplined for not washing their hands. These barriers actually protect the status quo and endanger the life of the customer, staff and the very business itself.

Handwashing competes with the highly valued indicators of productivity on which managers and staff are measured and rewarded. The risk of a foodborne outbreak is already high but getting much higher by virtue of the current trends in rising punitive damages and threatened executive jail time. Advancements in science like Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) have equipped the CDC Pulse-Net labs with the capability to identify outbreaks previously missed by first-generation systems. 

Measuring Handwashing
Risk management must play a larger role in fixing the time-hardened handwash behaviors. The answer is in process control for which numbers are needed -numbers to reach and sustain goals via the built-in employee Performance Review structure. The steps for a sustainable solution are to first assess the risk, set standards, set the conditions for success, train and finally monitor to motivate the needed behavior change.

The Handwashing For Life Institute has developed tools to help change handwashing behavior. All of these lead to measurement as a way to motivate and sustain hand cleanliness levels and the behaviors required. 

High-touch surfaces frequently harbor pathogens. High levels of pathogens remain invisible but are more likely to cross-contaminate than those surfaces frequently cleaned and measured with either ATP or UV tracing systems. The measurement increases the cleaning frequency.

Handwashing effectiveness can be given a number by using invisible tracing lotion and scanning with a UV light to illuminate areas missed. This training method adds visual impact that helps a workforce better understand the need for a thorough wash. 

A safe-level frequency of washing hands is an important standard to engage the staff in setting. The number is always imprecise, but it is reached through collaboration with peers and their managers. The most dramatic improvement in handwash frequency occurs with the addition of electronic logging of actual washes and comparing them to the employee-agreed safe level standard. In addition, some firms have developed electronic monitoring solutions to help measure and ensure compliance.

Data converts randomness to a process and drives a sustainable handwashing solution. Handwashing becomes clearly understood as a critical risk-based behavior. Now success can be calibrated, celebrated and perpetuated.