Food Safety Talk 100: No buns in the bathroom

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Ben Chapman

Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds. The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University. Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.

They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.

Episode 100 can be found here and on iTunes.

Here is a bulleted list of link to the topics mentioned on the show:

Chipotle’s reputation score goes down

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Ben Chapman

Kinda like some of the adult hockey teams I’ve been on, Chipotle’s reputation, according to Bloomberg, has gone from first to worst.

I don’t know the measures, metrics or scale, so this might fall into the ‘charts and graphs with no science’ category. But like the buzz score, the reputation is dropping.

The company’s reputation now ranks below rivals including Moe’s Southwest Grill and Jack in the Box Inc.’s Qdoba, according to a new survey from WD Partners and Nation’s Restaurant News. Last year, Chipotle had the best reputation among Mexican limited-service chains in the U.S.

5 outbreaks in 6 months will do that: Chipotle sales tank in Q1

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Douglas Powell

USA Today reports that Chipotle posted a double-digit sales decline in the first quarter as the fast-casual restaurant chain works to restore its reputation after a spate of food-related illnesses hit its stores last year.

Chipotle was dealt a swift blow when multiple instances of E. coli and norovirus shut down its stores and scared off customers starting last fall. The outbreaks prompted Chipotle, which built its reputation on preparing fresh food directly in stores, to adopt new food-safety policies and move more of its food preparation to a central kitchen, where it’s also testing certain ingredients for diseases.

In the earnings report out Tuesday, Chipotle said food costs accounted for more than 35% of revenue in the quarter ended March 31, driven up by food-testing protocols and increased costs for pre-cut produce. That means for every dollar going into Chipotle’s cash registers, it spent about 35 cents on food costs.

The company has been investing heavily in marketing and promotions to entice customers back to stores. Promotional and marketing expenses totaled $55 million in the quarter, Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung said on a conference call. The efforts appear to be working. Executives said on the call Tuesday that the company gave away more than 6 million burritos or burrito bowls in February and March. A mobile campaign offering free burritos to make up for the day Chipotle closed stores temporarily in early February to hold an all-staff meeting on food safety had a 67% redemption rate, said co-CEO Steve Ells.

Sales at stores open at least a year fell nearly 30%, and restaurant transactions fell more than 21% as Chipotle reeled from the fallout of the food-safety issues — although transaction volume improved as the quarter went on. While the promotions seem to be resonating with new customers, executives said the company is still working to get its formerly most loyal eaters back in stores.

Chipotle said total sales came to $834.5 million, down 23.4% from $1.1 billion in the year-ago quarter. That was well below analyst expectations for revenue of $863.2 million, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Chipotle shares fell about 5% in after-hours trading on the news.

CDC: Faster tests, but lousy tracking

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Changes in the tests that diagnose foodborne illness are helping identify infections faster but could soon pose challenges to finding outbreaks and monitoring progress toward preventing foodborne disease, according to a report published today in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Week Report.

Culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) help doctors diagnose infections quickly because they provide results in hours instead of the days needed for traditional culture methods, which require growing bacteria to determine the cause of illness. But without a bacterial culture, public health officials cannot get the detailed information about the bacteria needed to help find outbreaks, check for antibiotic resistance, and track foodborne disease trends.

In 2015, the percentage of foodborne infections diagnosed only by CIDT was about double compared with the percentage in 2012-2014.

“Foodborne infections continue to be an important public health problem in the United States,” said Robert Tauxe, M.D., M.P.H, director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases. “We are working with partners to make sure we still get important information about harmful bacteria despite the increasing use of diagnostic tests that don’t require a culture.”

The increased use of CIDT could affect public health officials’ ability to monitor trends and detect outbreaks. In the short term, clinical laboratories should work with their public health laboratories to make sure a culture is done whenever a CIDT indicates that someone with diarrheal illness has a bacterial infection. For a long-term solution, CDC is working with partners to develop advanced testing methods that, without culture, will give health care providers information to diagnose illness and also give the detailed information that public health officials need to detect and investigate outbreaks.

Limited progress in reducing foodborne illness

The report included the most recent data from CDC’s Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, or FoodNet. It summarizes preliminary 2015 data on nine germs spread commonly through food. Overall, progress in reducing rates of foodborne illnesses has been limited since 2012, according to the report. The most frequent causes of infection in 2015 were Salmonella and Campylobacter, which is consistent with previous years.

Other key findings from the FoodNet report include:

The incidence of Salmonella Typhimurium infection, often linked to poultry and beef, decreased 15 percent from 2012-2014 levels.

This decline may be due in part to tighter regulatory standards and vaccination of chicken flocks against Salmonella.

The incidence of some infections increased:

Reported Cryptosporidium infections increased 57 percent since 2012-2014, likely due to increased testing for this pathogen.

Reported non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infections increased 40 percent since 2012-2014. Quicker and easier testing likely accounted for some or all of this increase.

FoodNet has been monitoring illness trends since 1996. FoodNet provides a foundation for food safety policy and prevention efforts because surveillance data can tell us where prevention efforts are needed to reduce foodborne illnesses.

CDC is working with federal, state, and local partners, and the food industry to improve food safety. New regulations and continuing industry efforts are focusing on challenging areas. USDA has made improvements in its poultry inspection and testing models and has tightened standards for both Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry.

“In 2013, we launched a series of targeted efforts to address Salmonella in meat and poultry products, known as the Salmonella Action Plan, and recent data show that since then the incidence of Salmonella Typhimurium infection has dropped by 15 percent,” said USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Food Safety, Al Almanza. “However our work is not done. The newly published performance standards for poultry parts will lead to further Salmonella reductions and fewer foodborne illnesses.”

In 2015, FDA published new rules to improve the safety of the food supply including produce, processed foods, and imported foods.

Dr. Kathleen Gensheimer, MD, MPH, director of the FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation team and Chief Medical Officer, Foods and Veterinary Medicine Program, said, “We want to respond quickly to foodborne illness, but our true goal is to move forward with preventive measures that will be implemented from farm to table. In addition to collaboration with other government agencies at the local, state and federal level, the rules we are implementing under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act will help the food industry minimize the risk of contamination to our food supply.”

For more information on avoiding illnesses from food, please visit www.foodsafety.gov.

About FoodNet

FoodNet collects information to track rates and determine trends in laboratory-confirmed illnesses caused by nine germs transmitted commonly by food: Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, Listeria, Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing O157 and non-O157, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia. Annual data are compared with data from the previous three years (2012-2014). Since 2010, FoodNet has been tracking the increasing use of CIDTs used by clinical laboratories for diagnosis of bacterial enteric infection.

FoodNet is a collaboration among CDC, 10 state health departments, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the FDA. FoodNet covers 48 million people, encompassing about 15 percent of the United States population. The sites are the states of Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Tennessee, and selected counties in California, Colorado, and New York.

Food Safety Talk 99: Are you familiar with the Haugh Unit?

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Ben Chapman

They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed.

Episode 99 can be found here and on iTunes.

Don and Ben talk pickles, puppies, Lord Stanley and his cup, the Internet, eggs, coffee, deli slicers and cuisine from around the world. After Dark turns into taxes safety talk.

Below are some links to some of the things that they talked about:

Food Safety Talk 98: Klouty with a chance of meatballs

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Ben Chapman

Episode 98 can be found here and on iTunes.

This week Don and Ben open with the usual popular culture talk and then move into a discussion of norovirus-laden couches, Chipotle (again), and the safety of petting zoos. From there the discussion moves to lady balls, duck sliders, balls to the wall, and Blue Bell Ice Cream. The After Dark features more cowbell.

Below are some links to some of the things that they talked about:

‘Build a facility where people where people can wash their hands’; handwashing is never enough

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Ben Chapman

I’m passionate about food safety because real people – folks who are just like my family, my neighbors or the guys on my hockey team – get sick every day.

Amanda Collins is a real person. NBC Connecticut reports that Amanda and her daughter are two of at least 15 people are ill with pathogenic E. coli after visiting a Connecticut goat farm.

“I walked right in,” Collins said. “Me loving farms, I held the goats, pet the goats and brought my daughter into the stall.”

Collins said it was a wonderful experience, with a knowledgeable staff and plenty of children and their parents around petting the goats.

However, a few days after the visit, the symptoms started. At first, she thought she had a stomach bug, but when her daughter developed the same symptoms, she knew something was wrong.

“Friday is when it hit, when I ended up having inestinal pain, diarrhea, seeing bloody stool,” Collins said. “And just seeing her go through the same thing that I physically felt myself is agnozing.“

After trips to the doctor’s office and the emergency room, both she and her daughter tested positive for E.coli. She did not put all of the pieces together until she got a call from the CDC.

“That’s when it clicked and I was like I did visit a farm and I had a lot of interaction with the animals,” Collins said.

“I cried a lot,” Collins said. “I was very anxious. I was upset about it at first, but never angry at the farm though.”

Collins said both she and her daughter used hand sanitizer at the farm and wet wipes once they got to the car. She said this will not stop them from visiting farms in the future.

“The only thing I would have to said is please build a facility where people where people can wash their hands because I think that will stop a lot from spreading.” Collins said.

Reducing risk in animal contact settings is more than just handwashing. Soil, sawdust, rails and food are all vectors.

Click here for a table summarizing petting zoo and animal contact outbreaks over the past 25 years.

Food Safety Talk 96: Boom goes the dynamite

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Ben Chapman

Episode 96 can be found here and on iTunes.

The guys are on a roll. They are very happy that they are releasing new episodes consistently. The show opens with a discussion of topics like Boom, Boom Goes the Dynamite, Dyn-o-mite, Beastie Boys, William Shatner, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, The Avett Brothers, The Sadies, and The Best of Little Feat.

They quickly transition with the Maytag Raw Milk Blue Cheese recall by Whole Foods. Ben says that there is a no way for customers to tell if milk was pasteurized; they must read the label, and he notes the absence of the word pasteurized makes the difference, not the presence of the word raw. The discussion moves to the literature and a research paper on the survival of E. coli O157:H7 in Gouda and Cheddar aged for 60 days. Don emphasizes that the rate of pathogen decrease and not the days of survival which is important. Ben asked Don if it is safe to consume raw milk. “It depends, and it is complicated” he replies. The conversation turns to an article by David Gumpert “Is OPDC Bumping Scalability Limits, to Detriment of Raw Milk Nationally”. The guys note that exposure is less when a business is small. Don goes off a tangent, mentioning two articles about the brain and self-government. Ben responds to Don by recommending another on risk communication, which suggest that it is hard to change people beliefs.

From there the podcast digresses into Wordy Rappinghood and Kanye West Facts before turning to the boiling of water as affected by atmospheric pressure, and altitude in response to a question from Linda Harris. The show ends with a discussion of GFSI audits and poor food safety culture.

Alaska nursing home seeks to make safer seal oil for residents

Posted on March 28, 2016 by Ben Chapman

My botulism fears have been well detailed. I don’t mess with it; paralysis and the long term effects are enough to convince me to take risk management steps like avoiding risky foods.

Like seal oil.

A 2014 botulism outbreak linked to seal oil led to over 25 illnesses in Alaska. There was another outbreak in 1997. There have been others too.

But the food has a lot of cultural importance – and a according to the Daily Mail, nursing home is working with bot experts to process the oil, often home made and donated, safely.

An Alaskan Native organization asked for permission to serve its nursing home residents nutrient-rich seal oil.

Regulators are working with the Kotzebue-based Maniilaq Association to possibly serve the seal oil, a traditional staple that’s banned in public settings because of its high risk for botulism if not properly processed.

Lorinda Lhotka with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, said the agency would grant an exemption to the Kotzebue-based Maniilaq Association if it can demonstrate a safe method for rendering the oil, which can taste like a heavy, if slightly fishy, olive oil when fresh.

It’s used like a dipping sauce in Native households across the state.

‘We know that it’s a really healthy food, but there’s also some hazards associated with it if it’s not prepared safely,’ said Lhotka, a member of an unofficial task force looking at ways to make seal oil legally available.

Alaska consistently ranks among the highest in the nation for rates of foodborne botulism. The numbers vary widely, but generally range between zero and as many as 15 people affected each year.

Deaths, however, are rare, occurring in Alaska only twice in the last 10 years, according to Louisa Castrodale, a state epidemiologist.

Maniilaq, a regional tribal health care nonprofit based in Kotzebue, hopes it can add seal oil to the list of traditional foods that can legally be donated to facilities such as its Kotzebue nursing home, which serves elderly Inupiat Eskimos.

For its seal oil quest, Maniilaq has teamed up with University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers, as well as University of Wisconsin botulism expert Eric Johnson, to assess the oil rendering process at its new Kotzebue processing plant for traditional foods.

Fancy food ain’t safe food and Salmonella is bad for business –: Fig and Olive edition

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Douglas Powell

In the summer of 2015, some 150 people were stricken with Salmonella at uppity Fig and Olive restaurants in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

Last week, the restaurant went through a round of layoffs—six months after a salmonella outbreak sickened diners at its restaurants in D.C. and California.

Four former employees agreed to talk to Washington City Paper about Fig & Olive’s operations only on the condition of anonymity, and those familiar with the layoffs say around a dozen managers and corporate employees across the company were let go. Other employees have also quit the upscale Mediterranean restaurant chain in recent months over frustrations with how the business is run.

Fig & Olive Marketing Director Ludovic Barras would not confirm how many people were laid off last week, citing “confidentiality issues.” He added, “We have implemented some restructuring as part of our business review and strategy, however we do not generally discuss our approach outside of the company.”

Former employees say sales have been down in the wake of the September salmonella outbreak and subsequent critical media coverage. While Fig & Olive hasn’t divulged specifics, company President Greg Galy told the Washington Post in December, “We’ve seen a negative impact, I guess, related to all the press. Yes, it negatively impacted the business. But we’re doing all that’s necessary to bring back the business to where it needs to be.”

One former mid-level executive says, “They’re an image conscious-first company. They don’t care about the guest. They care about their image, and they care about the bottom line … It’s just not a good company.”

Foodborne illness lawyer Bill Marler has filed five lawsuits on behalf of diners who reported getting sick, but he says he has 50 cases in the pipeline that could be filed after the discovery period. A federal judge in D.C. has ordered that discovery be completed by Aug. 31. “We have been attempting to resolve the cases, but have not made progress–even for those people who were hospitalized,” Marler writes in an email.

Fig & Olive declined to comment about pending litigation.

Meanwhile, a second health department shutdown at one the chain’s California outposts in the months after the salmonella outbreak raises further questions about the company’s food safety efforts.

barfblog

safe food from farm to fork

Category Archives: Food Safety Culture