Get off the rollercoaster... Moving your establishments towards compliance and behavior changes through long-term intervention strategies

Food safety is a growing priority in the foodservice industry, but many retail establishments still struggle to maintain high standards of food safety practices every day. This is a source of frustration for regulators who are faced with continually non-compliant establishments and a great drain on their time and resources.

By conducting risk-based inspections and focusing on the five risk factors as defined by FDA (Poor personal hygiene, Contaminated equipment/cross-contamination, Improper holding temperatures, Inadequate cooking temperatures, Food from unsafe sources) inspectors can help operators understand the factors which contribute most to foodborne illness, and consequences of inadequate food safety practices.

Long-term intervention strategies can help establishments break that cycle of repeat violations and poor behaviors on the part of food workers. Regulators can apply these tools in cooperation with management to facilitate improved behaviors and achieve compliance long-term. These proactive strategies would include date-marking and food rotation programs, suggesting changes of equipment/facility layout, altering buyer specifications, revisions of recipes and food preparation processes, use of SOP’s and Risk Control Plans, and assistance in implementing a voluntary food safety plan.

This approach goes past the traditional inspector toolkit of thermometer, flashlight and test strips, as citing code violations and demanding corrective actions alone are not always producing the compliance levels we are looking for. We need to tell food workers the “whys” as well as the “hows” of conducting a safe food operation. Also, according to FDA, food workers are “oral culture learners” and often learn better through visual demonstrations and oral explanations rather than traditional textbook learning methods. Visual posters and storyboards, as well as instructional videos can be effective in communicating food safety practices and helping to implement good behaviors in food workers.

It is in the best interest of all parties for regulators and QA personnel to help operators understand the process by which foods become contaminated and/or unsafe, and communicate with them to find solutions to their food safety shortcomings. Long-term intervention strategies, accompanied by training for foodservice personnel to reinforce these good behaviors, can move towards a more efficient, effective inspection process.