Last week I had lunch with a colleague at a bar and grill-style restaurant close to campus and ordered a burger. The server asked me how I wanted it cooked and I replied “well done”, the quick and easy response, and a bit of a cop-out on my part.

The server prodded me a bit, saying that they use really high quality meat and sort of dared me, or at least nudged me, to reconsider something like medium well. Taking this as an opening, I asked her if the kitchen had a thermometer and if they could cook my burger to 160F. I’ve asked this question before at other restaurants (sometimes to the dismay of my dining partners) and have been given a “yeah right” and chuckle – even though the 155F for 15 seconds or 160F guideline is in the FDA food code (my first encounter with this was while playing golf with Doug at a food safety conference).

Our server looked at me a bit weird, said she figured they had a thermometer because they have “pretty good kitchen staff” and would ask.  She came back five minutes later and said that the line cook had a thermometer, they use it all the time, and it would be no problem to get a 160F burger.

While the server didn’t really steer me in the right direction, the kitchen got it right. One of the difficulties in creating a good food safety culture in a food service setting is the disconnect between the serving staff (who don’t always seem to know much about risks) and the kitchen staff (who are doing most of the risk reduction).

We don’t often have Staphylococus aureus examples to share with food handlers, but the below story is a good one to use.  Four separate outbreaks occurring over about a month (demonstrates that this likely was a food safety culture breakdown as much as a microbiology problem). This story also highlights why it’s not a great idea to have cream filled baked goods sit at room temperature. It’s a bit of a guess since information on the specifics of the outbreak is hard to come by, but I see three factors potentially leading to this outbreak:

– Hygiene:  Improper handwashing after touching face/eyes/nose or sneezing on the fillings (or ingredients). Staphylococcus aureus is common on skin.
– Sanitation issues: Possibly the multiple outbreaks happened as a result of one poor hygiene event and contamination became resident on some equipment (a mixer blade, bowl, etc) that wasn’t cleaned/sanitized between use.
– Temperature abuse: regardless of contamination route the biggest failure here (assuming it was cream-filled pastries) is holding the products at temperatures suitable for growth of the pathogen and toxin formation.

The newest food safety infosheet, a graphical one-page food safety-related story directed at food businesses, is now available at www.foodsafetyinfosheets.com
Food Safety Infosheet Highlights:
– Testing revealed Staphylococcus aureus in Rolf’s Patisserie products.
– Bakery products such as cream-filled pastries like cream pies and chocolate eclairs are often implicated in Staphylococcus aureus outbreaks.
– Outbreaks at bakeries are often linked to poor personal hygiene, contaminated equipment and temperature abuse.

You can download the food safety infosheet here.

The Waterloo Region Record has an update on the botulism-risk, soup recall from Southern Ontario (that’s in Canada) that led to 9,600 litres of soup being pulled from shelves and estimated loss of greater than $100,000 to Barrie Bros. Local Food Company. The recall was initiated after indicator organisms were found in samples of broccoli soup processed by a co-packer/processor in Guelph. Health officials believe that the co-packer’s processing time for this product was inadequate.

Andrew Barrie, co-owner of Barrie Bros. Local Food Company talks about some of the challenges dealing with this type of a crisis:

“You can’t just dump it on the fields,” Barrie said. “You can’t pour it down the drain.” [Barrie] found a beef and hog operation in Wellington County that is able to feed waste food products like the soup to their animals, mixed with regular feed.

A cone of silence is starting to pop-up around who the copacker is. This information isn’t for finger pointing or laying blame (Barrie Bros. have already negotiated a deal with the processor to share the recall costs) but it is important information for other small business who currently (or would like to) use the facility for their products. Food safety risk reduction and business protection is  about making informed decisions about processes, inputs and suppliers. Without identifying the business at the center of the recall, and providing a forum for them to demonstrate how they’ve changed/fixed their process, businesses and buyers are in the dark.

In November 2006, Hershey Canada announced a major recall in Canada and shut down its Smith Falls, Ontario, plant for three weeks after Salmonella was found in their products. The contamination was linked to lecithin, an ingredient used in chocolate production. CFIA who was all over the national airwaves refused to release the lecithin supplier’s information – and left many companies wondering if their supplies were also contaminated.

Health officials and the co-packer in question are doing themselves a disservice by not going public. Take the Barrie Bros. Local Food Company lead and let folks know that there was a problem and show them how it’s being addressed.

My grandmother worked in retail in downtown Toronto (that’s in Canada) for 30+ years. She used to manage the women’s clothing department at Simpson’s (a department store at the corner of Queen and Yonge – which is now a Hudson’s Bay Company store). Every year around Christmas she’d take me on the streetcar to Simpson’s to see the holiday set-up in the windows (Santa, trains, snow etc.), we’d go toy shopping, and then she’d take me to Druxy’s (a deli-type restaurant) for a hot dog. It was sort of our thing.

“The office was decimated for this poor company,” said Mackie. “They are all off.”

Cynthia Graber of Scientific American highlights our British Food Journal paper in today’s 60 Second Science episode. You can check out the text here and download the podcast here.

‘Tis the season when we’re eating. And we want to be sure that the kitchen staff are following protocols that keep us from getting sick. So how best to help them learn those rules? The answer, it turns out, is to spin a good yarn.

Food workers were more likely to read the reports, discuss them and retain their lessons. Just shows that even if it’s just about cleaning the cutting board, everyone likes a good tale.

You can subscribe to 60 Second Science via RSS here.