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Fish Labeling Fraud

MN Food Safety Managers and Fish Labeling Fraud

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According to a recent report out of New York state, fish labeling fraud is becoming fairly rampant, with many species of fish being substituted with cheaper, lower quality seafood. If this is such a widespread problem, how can MN food safety managers actually know if their seafood is actually what the supplier says it is?

Fish Labeling Fraud

Image credit: NOAA Photo Library

How to Avoid Becoming a Fish Labeling Fraud Victim

While this study concerned fish sold in New York state, we can assume that seafood sold in Minnesota at least has the potential of being mislabeled. Here’s a few ideas that we’ve come up with to help you avoid bringing in mislabeled fish:

  • Use reputable seafood suppliers rather than large restaurant supply services
  • Ask your supplier for a precise label that includes your seafood’s source
  • If you order wild fish, reject any shipment that is not labeled as wild caught
  • If a supplier’s cost is much lower than market price, be wary

Large food suppliers are great for basic items, but the seafood market is so specialized that it’s probably a good idea to find a supplier that specializes in seafood, especially ocean caught fish. With our state far away from both oceans, food safety managers should put their trust in companies with seafood shipping experience to ensure freshness, quality and authenticity.

Most seafood, especially wild caught species such as salmon, should be labeled accordingly. Look out for generic labels on fish species such as salmon, cod or snapper. These three species of fish are susceptible to labeling fraud, especially if you are expecting wild caught or a specific variety of these popular seafood items. Ask your supplier for an accurate and specific label that includes a harvest location.

Finally, be wary of deals that look too good to be true, because they probably are. It’s not uncommon for more disreputable suppliers to mask a cheap, low quality fish as a desirable product and advertise an unbelievable price. Once cleaned and fileted, a generic white fish may resemble cod, but your customers will taste the difference.

Do you take steps to make sure that you’re receiving the seafood that you actually ordered?

Menu streamlining

Guide to Menu Streamlining

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When evaluating the food cost of any given menu, waste creates a major impact and hurts profit margins, especially during typically slow late winter months. Besides ordering less product, menu streamlining options can help reduce waste and leave more money in your budget. This week, we’ll offer some tips on menu streamlining menu that can prevent excess waste and improve profits.

Menu streamlining

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Reducing Waste By Streamlining Your Menu

Most chefs and food managers resist the urge to trim their menu during lean months, but we feel the benefits outweigh giving your customers a wide range of choices. When evaluating your menu during traditionally slow periods, look for a few of the following options to menu streamlining :

  • Remove Rarely Ordered Items
  • Alter Dishes to Share Ingredients
  • Find Substitutes for Expensive Ingredients
  • Consider Special Menus Early in the Week

If you keep sales reports, take a look at which items are most frequently ordered and which are rarely ordered. If you have a low percentage of any menu item, consider removing it during slow times. Even at a low order rate, you may sell enough to keep ingredients on hand during peak months, but that low order rate will turn into waste when business drops off.

Side dishes can often be a source of waste. Consider using more cost effective ingredients and rewriting your menu so that more than one dish shares a side. While providing a unique ingredients and side dishes for every item gives customers options, it also increases waste. Temporarily finding ways to include the same ingredient in more than one menu item will reduce waste and lower food cost.

Some restaurants offer a special menu on slower days, typically early in the week. Weekend business usually stays steady, so running a typical menu works for busy days, but offering a more cost effective or “weekday menu” is a common solution to waste reduction.

As a food manager, do you feel altering your menu to reduce waste during the off-season is a solution for controlling food cost?

MN Certified Food Protection Managers and an FDA Warning On Avocados

FDA Warning On Avocados Has Broader Implications

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Last December, the FDA issued a microbiological sample study on whole, fresh avocados. As a result of this study, they have warned the general public that a chance of listeria poisoning exists if the skins are not washed before cutting. We’ve looked at their study, and we agree MN Certified Food Managers should be aware of the FDA warning on avocados, but why stop with avocados?

MN Certified Food Protection Managers and an FDA Warning On Avocados

Image credit: www.kjokkenutstyr.net via flickr

FDA Warning on Avocados (And Washing ALL Skinned Fruits and Vegetables)

During training, certified food protection managers learn that one of the most common causes of food-borne illness is the transfer of bacteria from one surface to another. In the case of the FDA’s recent study, this transfer has been occurring in avocados. But how does listeria end up in a dish containing avocados if we don’t eat the skin?

In the case of avocados, and other fruits and vegetables with rinds, shells or thick skins, contamination can dwell on the surface of the item in question. When you cut into these rinds, your knife blade may come into contact with listeria, salmonella or any number of other types of contaminates. Once this happens, the bacteria simply spreads into the edible portion of your fruits and vegetables as your now contaminated knife slides through the meat of your ingredient.

While there is little chance the insides were contaminated before preparation, the simple act of cutting open an avocado, melon or citrus fruit has now increased the change of illness because of a failure to wash your product ahead of time.

As a certified food protection manager, your role should be to educate and monitor your staff to see that all skinned produce is washed before preparation. Take care to ensure that everyone knows the risks, even some staff members who may not work in the kitchen who prepare ingredients such as lemon wedges for the bar, sliced oranges for garnish or any other employee whose duties involve preparing these types of items.

Do you take extra steps to wash produce with inedible skins and rinds?

Food Safety Standards for Automated Restaurants

Food Safety Standards for Automated Restaurants

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It may sound like we’re pulling this story out of an episode of the Jetson’s, but the future is here and automated mobile restaurants are starting becoming a reality. That got us to thinking, in the absence of employees and ServSafe food managers that have completed food safety courses, how exactly will we know if the food safety standards are being maintained in future automated restaurants?

Food Safety Standards for Automated Restaurants
Image credit: Corneillia5 via Wikimedia

Food Safety Standards and the Future of Restaurant Automation

While current examples of automated restaurants appear to be types of juice and smoothie bars, it’s not too hard to fathom that technology will eventually provide opportunities for automation to serve more complicated dishes that require storing and cooking raw foods.

While the Minnesota food code doesn’t currently contain a section regarding robot chefs, we’d have to speculate that much more than the cooking process would have to be automated. Sanitation procedures would have to be closely followed, and we feel those procedures should at least be moderated and supervised by a living, breathing human being. Here are just some procedures we feel would have to be monitored by a ServSafe food manager:

  • Hot and Cold Holding Temperatures
  • Sanitation of Cooking Utensils
  • Temperatures of Finished Product
  • Quality of Raw Ingredients

As we all know, machinery can malfunction and even our computers freeze up from time to time. Without human observation, who’s to say that a robotic restaurant hasn’t had some sort of memory failure? If storage temperatures drop for hot-held foods or refrigeration fails, will an automated system have fail-proof safeguards for preventing customers from receiving tainted product?

Another major issue we see with automation is the quality of product. Not all products store for the same duration of time, and there can be product that may be spoiled or damaged that an organic chef can spot that robotic system won’t be programmed to assess.

While the Foodarackacycle may be several decades off, the foodservice industry and ServSafe food managers will have to adjust as automation becomes more and more prevalent.

How do you feel about the concept of maintaining food safety standards for automated restaurants without on-site human monitoring?