A Relationship Analysis of Restaurant Inspection Violations, Employee Behaviors, and Inspection Grades [POSTER]

When food service sanitation procedures are not verified or consistent, establishments tend to become lax in their ability to be diligent about sanitation. The results that occur when foodservice establishments are not enforcing sanitation procedures can be deadly.

The Jack in the Box E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak of 1993 which killed four children and infected hundreds of others grabbed the attention of food service managers. The confirmed cause of this outbreak was the result of an employee behavior where the hamburgers were not cooked to the required minimum internal temperature of 155°. Even though this outbreak occurred more than 15 years ago, it is still considered significant due to the deaths associated with it and as recently as 2001, still defined the company. As quoted in Advertising Age, “While Burger King was known for the Whopper, McDonalds was known for the Big Mac, Jack in the Box was known for E. coli”.

Twenty-two employee behavior related violations and 19 non-employee behavior related violations remained after removal of the violations with no results. Employee behavior related violations accounted for 48.5% of the total violations while non-employee behavior related violations accounted for the remaining 51.5%.

This study showed that the five items associated with foodborne illness, as listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are significant indicators of affecting the health inspection grade of a food establishment. These significant items, listed with the marginal effect each has on the grade of a food establishment include, food obtained from approved sources (48.76%), failure to properly refrigerate a ‘potentially hazardous food’ (69.33%), failure to adequately clean and sanitize kitchen utensils and equipment (61.6%), and improper storage of food (34.13%). The fifth item, proper hygienic practices, includes the procedure for hand washing by employees, which results in a 55.47% marginal effect on the probability of whether the food establishment would receive a grade of a ‘B’ or not. The results will be useful for both industry and academics in helping to establish a means for understanding where violations occur within food establishments and to create training modules which should improve inspection grades.