Tag Archives: grades

DC don’t know food safety

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Washington, D.C. is always on the cutting edge of food safety.

Not.

Which is why 13 years after Los Angeles started posting restaurant inspection grades, nine years after Toronto started posting red-yellow-green restaurant inspection grades, and a year after New York City started posting letter grades, someone in D.C. decided, hey, we should do that too.

D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) has introduced a bill that would require D.C. restaurants to publicly display letter-grade report cards on their premises, based on Department of Health inspections.

Cheh believes the grades would decrease the number of hospitalizations caused by foodborne diseases.

Not.
 

Dining in Denver: new safety rules served to restaurants

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Denver is going forward with a lousy restaurant inspection disclosure system that is more protective of restaurant owners than consumers.

Bob McDonald, director of the city’s public health inspections division, told the Denver Business Journal the idea is to more quickly penalize and bring about correction of the most severe health violations, and to allow restaurants with less health-endangering issues to correct theirs with less public notice. McDonald worked with the Colorado Restaurant Association for 18 months to create the new rules.

Under the new rules, critical violations will leave restaurants subject to fines for a second citation but not public notices.

Pete Meersman, president/CEO of the Colorado Restaurant Association, said his members have lobbied for changes to what they saw as an “unfair” system.

Under the new rules, the most-serious violators will be punished the most seriously, and the less-serious violators will be punished with fines but not the massive loss of business that can come with a public notice on their front doors.

“Owners … felt the adverse effect the postings had on their business was overly punitive for the issues involved.”

Scores on Doors was a better name: UK launches National Food Hygiene Rating Scheme

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The U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) is today launching a national food hygiene rating scheme that will help consumers choose where to eat out or shop for food by providing information about the hygiene standards in restaurants, pubs, cafes, takeaways, hotels, supermarkets, and other places.

You can search for food businesses and their hygiene ratings at food.gov.uk/ratings.

As more local authorities roll out the scheme over the coming months, more ratings will be published online.

The bright green and black food hygiene stickers showing a rating from zero to five will soon be a feature of shopping centres and high streets, as the FSA, in partnership with local authorities, rolls out its Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The aim is to reduce the one million cases of food poisoning suffered by people each year (I prefer the one in Welsh, upper right).

At the top of the scale is ‘5’ – this means the hygiene standards are very good. At the bottom of the scale is ‘0’ – this means urgent improvement is required. A different scheme, with similar aims, is being rolled out by local authorities in Scotland.

Questions remain for the U.K. system: why numbers; is the scoring system based on actual food safety hazards; what research guided FSA in these decisions; will it ever be published? And the color. What’s with the puke green?

One in 5 Brisbane food vendors fail; which ones

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More clarification on Brisbane, Australia’s ‘score on the door’ scheme.

The Brisbane Times reports that 5,500 food businesses were inspected by the Brisbane City Council this year as part of Eat Safe Brisbane, which rates all city food operators out of five for their compliance to food safety standards.

The businesses covered include restaurants, cafes, bakeries, hotels, prisons, child care centres and food manufacturers.

Businesses with ratings of three stars or more can elect to have their rating displayed at their premises or added to an online database.

However, those with two stars or less – which are required to make improvements to meet legislative requirements – will not be named online.

Sixteen per cent of eateries received a two-star rating, defined as having "a low level of compliance with the Food Act 2006 with more effort required to rectify issues".

Five per cent received a zero-star rating. There is no one-star rating.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said those with poor ratings were protected from being named by privacy legislation.

However, he said the optional system whereby outlets who received three stars or more could display their credentials, would pressure businesses into lifting their game.

Only 56 per cent of the overall food businesses have their results published online. This is made up of the 21 per cent of businesses who received two stars or less, plus another 23 per cent who opted out of having their rating made public.

Just eight per cent of Brisbane licensed food businesses received a five-star rating, with 26 per cent receiving a four and 45 per cent receiving three.

Businesses who receive high ratings will receive lower annual fees and less frequent audits.

Queensland Hoteliers Association chief executive Justin O’Connor said the system would provide an incentive for businesses to do better in terms of food safety compliance.

Norman Hotel general manager Michael Fallon, whose business received a five-star rating, said he would be wary of eateries who had not made their rating public.

"To me, that tells me they’ve got something to hide," Mr Fallon said.

Baking Industry Association Queensland Paul McDonald said he had little sympathy for businesses who recorded a low rating.

"If you are not up to standard you shouldn’t be open, I think you are endangering people’s lives and that is a risk none of us want to take," he said.

Star ratings can be viewed online at www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/EatSafeBrisbane.
 

Star rating system for Brisbane restaurants launched to protect diners

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Brisbane goes it alone, as the Australian city launched a "score on the door" program – except that it’s an electronic door that is only available on-line.

My 2-year-old knows how to navigate the iPod touch. I don’t.

So for us old-timers, why not just actually post a score on the door, rather than expect us to hitch up the stagecoach and find the reading glasses.

Brisbane City Council announced its Eat safe program today, whereby businesses will be rated from two to five stars with those food businesses receiving a three and above encouraged to display their rating in their business’s window.

Those restaurants that receive a two, a poor rating, will be given the chance to fix their problems and change their rating but businesses scoring less than two are likely to be shut down.

79 per cent of Brisbane’s 5500 food businesses received the safe rating of three stars.

Less than half – 2182 businesses – have signed on to display the ratings, which is voluntary.

No restaurant grades for Pittsburgh diners

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What New York, LA, Toronto and hundreds of other cities have figured out is baffling the health folks in Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Allegheny County restaurants won’t be posting inspection scores or grades in their windows for the public to view any time soon.

Although County health department director Bruce Dixon and County Manager Jim Flynn were both on the subcommittee to design a restaurant inspection disclosure program, Flynn said he was "disappointed" and was "a little confused" with the plan, while Dixon added, "It needs to be more clear as to what the rules are."

This from two dudes on the committee, which also included six other health department administrators, three other board members and five representatives from the local restaurant industry.

That’s a lot of salaries sitting around a table to come up with … nothing.

Under the proposed system, food inspectors would score restaurants starting at 100 percent and subtracting points for food safety violations they uncover. Scores would be translated into a letter grade of A, B or C. Restaurants scoring below a C would be closed until violations were fixed.

Under the current system, inspectors record violations but do not issue an overall grade or score.
 

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Scores on doors for all Australia?

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Lord Young told the U.K. government last month that he welcomed the Food Standards Agency’s decision to “drop the unfortunate title ‘scores on doors’” to describe restaurant inspection disclosure.

The POHMEs (Prisoner of Her Majesty’s Exile) have done their own review of the national food safety system and recommended that scores on doors be rolled out across Australia.

Good for them.

The national food safety review states that two-thirds of the 5.4 million cases of gastroenteritis in Australia each year can be attributed to food poisoning from restaurants, takeaway outlets, caterers and cafes (in a population of 21.4 million).

But, according to The Australian, it warns that the existing 2003 guidelines "may not provide the guidance needed to develop an effective food safety management approach for retail/food service."

Under the existing national rules, local councils inspect food outlets to check they are complying with basic standards for food hygiene and preparation. The safety standards are "outcome-based," replacing prescriptive regulations in each state.

But NSW, Victoria and Queensland have since broken away from the national system, imposing "add-on" requirements for staff working in food service and retailing to attend food training courses.

"State and local governments in some Australian jurisdictions are developing or piloting voluntary schemes that assign a ‘food safety rating’ based on routine inspection outcomes," the consultation paper, prepared for the Food Regulation Standing Committee of federal, state and territory food ministers, says.

"These approaches may provide a ‘positive’ incentive by publicising good food safety performance."

NSW, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria already use websites to "name and shame" companies fined over food safety breaches — yet Victoria has only three prosecutions on its website, compared to 1821 penalty notices in NSW.

Restaurant inspection is a snapshot in time and disclosure is no panacea. But it can boost the overall culture of food safety, hold operators accountable, and is a way of marketing food safety so that consumers can choose.

Scores on Doors too clear for UK restaurant grading schemes

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Only a Lord could get away with a report titled, Common Sense Common Safety.

It ain’t common sense if it hasn’t been thought of.

The report, published today in the U.K. by Lord Young, the Prime Minister’s adviser on health and safety law and practice, puts forward a series of policies for improving the perception of health and safety, to ensure it is taken seriously by employers and the general public, while ensuring the burden on small business is as insignificant as possible.

Wouldn’t it be better to improve health and safety, and then the perception would be improved – if there was actual data to back up the claims of improved health and safety?

The report is written in a snooty tone that apparently only the British can achieve, and was deliberated in the context of the compensation culture – those vulgar lawyers looking for recompense for slighted victims.

Prime Minister David Cameron said,

“A damaging compensation culture has arisen, as if people can absolve themselves from any personal responsibility for their own actions, with the spectre of lawyers only too willing to pounce with a claim for damages on the slightest pretext.

“We simply cannot go on like this. That’s why I asked Lord Young to do this review and put some common sense back into health and safety. And that’s exactly what he has done.”

The U.K. Food Standards Agency was quick to say the Lord backed their restaurant inspection disclosure scheme.

Under the voluntary Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, each business is given a hygiene rating (from 0-5) when it is inspected by a food safety officer from the business’s local authority. The hygiene rating shows how closely the business is meeting the requirements of food hygiene law.

I was never sure about the 0-5 rating – is 5 good or bad – whereas a letter grading has clearer meaning. The actual report contains some clues:

The good Lord says that local authority participation in the Food Standards Agency’s Food Hygiene Rating Scheme be made mandatory, and that usage of the scheme by consumers by harnessing the power and influence of local and national media.

He also says the voluntary display of ratings should be reviewed after 12 months and, if necessary, make display compulsory – particularly for those businesses that fail to achieve a ‘generally satisfactory’ rating.

“I welcome the FSA’s decision to drop the unfortunate title ‘scores on the doors’, which has been used in the past for this initiative, and its decision to drop the use of stars, which have a connotation of cost and service. I am pleased that they have decided instead to use a simple numerical scale with appropriate descriptors. These decisions were based on the results of independent research with consumers and this is what they found to be clearest and easiest to use.”

Scores on doors may be too direct for the Lord; I hope the Aussies keep using it. And I look forward to the 0-5 studies being published in a peer-reviewed journal so mere mortals can review the research.

The good Lord also cites the Los Angeles example of restaurant inspection disclosure – they use letter grades – and inflates an already dubious estimate by stating there was a 20 per cent drop in the number of people being admitted to hospital for food related illnesses after the introduction of the letter grades.

Restaurant inspection is a snapshot in time and disclosure is no panacea. It can boost the overall culture of food safety, hold operators accountable, and is a way of marketing food safety so that consumers can choose.

Call for mandatory display of food grades in Wales

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Even the BBC is realizing that asking food businesses in Wales to voluntarily display the results of their inspection rating is, uh, hopeless.

The public will be able to access ratings through a searchable database, which will be overseen by the Food Standards Agency.

Food safety campaigners like Maria Battle, a senior director of Consumer Focus Wales, welcomed the principle of the scheme but said it was under-mined by the practice of voluntary display

"And if it is a low food rating – below three – then it’s very, very rare that they display their rating. And they’re the businesses that people would choose not to eat in."

However Battle and others overstate their case when they say that "Mandatory display in Los Angeles resulted in an immediate 20% reduction in food-related illnesses – people being hospitalized. That saved hundreds of thousands of pounds and also a lot of preventable human suffering."

That’s become an oft-quoted stat, especially as New York City has gone through the angst of going public, but the paper is so full of holes I’m not sure how it got published.

The real benefit of public displays of food service inspection grades is the public shame and embarrassment, which may force operators to do better, and that people talk about it, so it enhances the overall microbial food safety culture. We’ve written a couple of papers about the topic based on research we did, but they’re not published yet, so I won’t violate my own advice and do science by press release.

Professor Hugh Pennington, who chaired the inquiry into the 2005 E.coli outbreak in South Wales which claimed the life of five-year-old schoolboy Mason Jones, five years ago this week, said,

"In principle I’m a believer in having this system as a mandatory system because it is self-evident that commercial pressure on a business – like fewer customers going in – is a very strong incentive for them to up their game."

The U.K. Food Standards Agency, which also told consumers they should cook raw sprouts until they are piping hot to avoid salmonella, is confident that voluntary display will work as consumers will draw their own conclusions when businesses choose not to display their Food Hygiene Ratings.

There is no published research that I know of which supports this statement.

We have published a review of why restaurant inspection disclosure is important. And there’s a few more things coming out.

Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.

Abstract

??The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.
 

New web site, letter grades go into effect for New York City diners

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The New York City health department unveiled a new Web site today to go along with the beginning of its A-B-C restaurant inspection disclosure system of more than 24,000 restaurants in the five boroughs.

Daniel Kass, a deputy commissioner, told The New York Times,

“There is no shortage of sources of information on restaurants, but there is no other central source to find information about restaurants’ hygiene practices. We hope that this Web site will help spread the food safety message.”

The Web site displays restaurants’ current A, B or C letter grades and the specifics of their violations, and is designed to allow searches by restaurants’ first names or even first letters, by letter grades in specific ZIP codes, by boroughs and by dates of inspection. It also offers maps of restaurants’ locations, and Google street views of the restaurants’ exteriors.

John La Duca, the department’s director of online editing said a widget on the home page will permit readers to type in restaurants’ names for their latest inspection results. This widget can be installed on other Web sites or home pages — for example, on the Zagat Survey’s online version, or on bloggers’ sites, or Facebook and other social media platforms — to permit quick access to the inspection ratings from places other than the department’s home page.

Inspection results on the site were formerly updated weekly, Mr. Kass said. “Now, in most cases, it will be updated daily, when it is uploaded overnight from the inspectors’ hand-helds,” he said, referring to the portable computers in which inspectors enter restaurants’ cleanliness scores.

Associated Press commemorated the beginning of the new letter grades by recycling old arguments – the same ones heard when Los Angeles started it’s a-B-C system in 1998 and Toronto started its red-yellow-green system in 2002.

Robert Bookman, a lawyer for the New York State Restaurant Association, which vehemently opposes the letter grades, said,

"Some will undoubtedly close if they get a B or a C."

Others say they accept the new system and will strive for an A.

David Chang, whose hotter-than-hot restaurants include Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ko, said,

"It is our goal always to get an A," said. "If we don’t get an A, we fail."

Chang said he has sent his sous chefs to city Health Department workshops to get up to speed on the new system.

That’s a much better approach. The best restaurants will not only embrace the letter grades and provide critiques to improve the system, they will brag and promote their A grades. It’s a form of marketing food safety, which helps enhance the overall culture of food safety.

Madelyn Alfano, who owns nine Maria’s Italian Kitchen restaurants, said Los Angeles restaurateurs still are not fond of the system, adding,

"If you don’t have hand towels in your restroom that’s points off. We don’t like it but we’ve learned to live with it."

That’s because paper towels should always be available. And what about a sticker on the dispenser that says,

“No towels? Please tell a server immediately. Yours in hand cleanliness, the owners.”

I just made that up.

Larry Michael, head of food protection for North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said letter grade systems also are in effect in North and South Carolina, and the system works well, adding,

"Consumers really pay attention to the rating cards. The A, B, C system is familiar and it’s easy to interpret."

For those still wondering, here’s a review paper discussing the pros and cons of disclosure systems.

Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.

Abstract?
The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.