Keep your Minnesota kitchen compliant. We track the latest food recalls and safety alerts so you can pull bad products fast and protect your customers.

Certified Food Protection Managers and Meatless Burgers

Certified Food Protection Managers and Meatless Burgers

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At Safe Food Training, we like to visit local restaurants and observe current menu trends, and we’ve noticed that more and more establishments are serving meat alternative burgers that are crafted to have a similar taste and texture to that of real beef. Seeing these products trend on menus and in the news got us to thinking, are there any food safety concerns for the certified food protection manager serving meatless burgers?

Certified Food Protection Managers and Meatless Burgers
Image credit: Max Pixel

Meatless Burgers and Certified Food Protection Managers

Vegetarian burger substitutes have existed for ages, but none have come close to simulating beef until now. Two brands in particular, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are easy to find in local restaurants and major chains. Are there any concerns from a food safety standpoint regarding these products?

Never assume that a product is safe just as it is. Even vegetarian products that are served hot must reach the proper temperature of 135 degrees. However, we’re not talking about raw fruit and vegetables that have been pulled from the produce shelf in your walk-in refrigerator, we’re talking about a mixed ingredient product not put together in your facility.

Beyond Meat recommends an internal cooking temperature of 165 degrees for their products, while Impossible Foods labels their product as “well-done” at 160 degrees. In the sales literature for their products, these manufacturers state that their product can be treated as if it were beef, so customers can choose to order their meatless burger undercooked to their liking. If you serve these products, we recommend cooking these product to well done unless a customer requests otherwise. If you choose to serve these burger alternatives at any temperature lower than 160 degrees, we suggest you include the same consumer advisory on your menu as if it were an actual beef burger.

Over time, as food innovations continue to change the landscape of menu options, training for certified food managers in Minnesota will have to be adjusted to incorporate new products. Do you know of any new and exciting food trends we should explore in upcoming articles?

Certified Food Managers Foodborne Illness Statistics

Certified Food Managers Guide to Foodborne Illness Statistics

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Gathering information on foodborne illness outbreaks gives us a greater insight into how these events start and what measures can be taken to prevent them in the future. The Center for Disease Control recently released a report outlining foodborne illness statistics and discussing testing and observation steps taken during outbreaks in 2018.

Certified Food Managers Foodborne Illness Statistics

CDC Report on Common Pathogens Causing Foodborne Illness

If you’ve taken a quick glance at this report, you may notice some very scientific language and a lot of statistics, so we’ll briefly break down some of the interesting facts in the report in simpler terms.

The bulk of this report discusses enteric infections, or food poisoning cases that affect the intestines. The two largest culprits discussed are campylobacter and salmonella infections. The CDC has confirmed nearly 10,000 infections of each in 2018. Following these two, e.Coli clocks in with nearly 3,000 cases, many of these coming from multiple outbreaks involving tainted romaine lettuce. This registers a 26-percent increase when compared to cases in 2015 to 2017.

Reading some of the discussions in this report indicate that the confirmed numbers are up partly due to improved testing methods. The CDC has increased the use culture-independent diagnostic tests, or CDITs, to diagnose suspected cases of enteric infections. This test is capable of identifying certain pathogens not routinely picked up by previously used testing methods.

While this report does have food-safety implications on a grand scale, what exactly does it mean to certified food managers?

We’ve drawn two conclusions from this report. First, improvements in testing technology show that illness from contaminated food is a larger issue than previous statistics have shown. This means that we should be more diligent then ever in promoting food safety in our establishments.

Finally, these advanced testing techniques have given us the most common pathogens and the food items that most commonly spread the infection. Seeing that there are targets the CDC has identified for improved food safety techniques gives us an insight into what types of ingredients require extra care. Certified food managers can be equipped with the knowledge that certain products are historically more susceptible than others and be diligent in inspecting shipments and following up on recalls and alerts concerning contaminated product.

Do statistics released by the CDC, USDA and other organizations have any effect on you handle food safety for susceptible products?

CFPMs_Touch_screens

CFPMs and Self-Service Touchscreens

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Advances in technology in the restaurant industry offers numerous opportunities for business owners to run their establishment in a more efficient and cost effective manner. Self-service touchscreen kiosks are one of the newest trends for major restaurants, especially fast food chains. A study in the UK, however, shows this new technology is creating major headaches for CFPMs and self-service touchscreens are proving to be a huge contamination risk .

CFPMs and Self-Service Touch Screens
Image credit: Wikimedia- TaiCIWJHai King Tung

CFPMs and Self-Service Touchscreens Contamination Problems

Researchers in Britain tested numerous McDonalds’ self-ordering touchscreens and discovered traces of fecal matter on every single one.

Let’s think about that closely for one second. They didn’t find fecal matter on a few, half or even 90 percent. They found traces of human feces on every single one. The list of specific bacteria found is fairly extensive, but it included the potential for hospital-grade illness from pathogens like Staphylococcus, listeria and Bacillus as well as standard food-borne illness outbreak culprits.

If that isn’t bad enough, the study also looked into the immediate hygiene habits of patrons using the machine. Customers would walk in, get in line and order. There was no sanitizing or washing of hands from the point of entry to the time of order. Many would order, take their seat, wait for their food and begin eating without washing their hands at all. This recipe for disaster should make food safety managers cringe.

With these screens infiltrating the dining rooms and lobbies in many different types of food service establishments, what can we do to keep our customers safe from potential infection?

The key is sanitation. The touch screen must be sanitized at regular intervals. If they’re the table top variety, sanitizing after each guest will remove all traces of bacteria that may have found their way to the surface from previous guests. But, lobby self-ordering systems are much harder to keep an eye on.

In this case, it’s unlikely you can enforce proper hygiene on all of your guests, but you can give them a nudge in the right direction. Attach a sanitizer dispenser to your touchscreen kiosk or have one readily available. We’d recommend having a sanitizer dispenser where the line begins and one at the machine itself. This will promote sanitation before and after ordering. Also, signage directing guests to the nearest washroom will also put the thought into their heads that maybe they should wash their hands before and after ordering.

Do you have touch screens available for your guest to use for ordering convenience?

ServSafe Basics for 12 Dirtiest Foods

ServSafe MN Basics for the Twelve Dirtiest Foods

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Recently, a food safety watchdog group published its list of 12 produce items that test most frequently for traces of pesticides, and there are a number of surprising foods on this list. This week, we’ll take a look at the list and provide and a ServSafe MN basics review for proper produce handling.

ServSafe Basics for 12 Dirtiest Foods
Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture

The Dirty Dozen and ServSafe MN Basics

As you can imagine, several foods grown in the dirt make an appearance on this list. Kale, potatoes, strawberries, spinach and celery make this notorious list. These foods grow close to or in the ground, and therefore close to bugs, snails and slugs, so many farmers treat their fields with some form of pesticide to protect their crop.

Tree fruits also figure prominently on this list. Apples, pears, peaches nectarines and cherries often test positive for pesticides, and vine and bush products such as tomatoes and grapes round out the list.

It’s important to note that there are no recalls or major warnings from the USDA concerning any of these fruits and vegetables. In fact, levels of pesticides found have not been labeled as dangerous or evaluated by any official agency, so let’s not panic and stop serving these items. It is, however, important information that serves as a reminder to review our ServSafe MN basics when it comes to handling raw produce.

Always inspect produce upon delivery. If you notice and odd smells, discoloration any type of sheen which looks chemical in nature, you may wish to consider rejecting shipment or asking for an exchange. Inspection on delivery is the first line of defense against serving contaminated food.

Make sure you wash all produce before serving, preparing or cooking. Pesticides can spread to other foods, leave residual traces on cutting boards and be consumed by guests, so washing produce is key.

Do you take extra precautions with certain ingredients, or do you carefully wash and inspect all produce regardless of type?