Lets start with statistics.  According to the 2011 CDC estimates for domestically acquired illness, Norovirus is responsible for 58 % or 5.5 million cases a year.  See full report here.

According to the CDC, “Outbreaks of norovirus illness have also occurred in restaurants, cruise ships, schools, banquet halls, summer camps, and even at family dinners. These are all places where people often eat food handled or prepared by others.”  Why then all of the focus on new manufacturing regulations under the Food Safety Modernization act by the FDA?

I believe the answer is to prevent and reduce major outbreaks.  However, based on the statistics it is my opinion that if there was more regulation on training food handlers we would see a dramatic decrease in the over all numbers.

Just the other day,  a friend that generally smirks at my steadfast demand for food safety  finally understands why I have such high standards.  At a local grocery chain he was purchasing shrimp.  At this particular store the deli counter employees assist in the seafood department as well. The deli / seafood person came to the seafood side wearing gloves. They reached in with the gloved hand and placed the shrimp in a bag.  He started to walk away when all my speeches  about glove use must have started ringing in his head.  He wondered, “if she didn’t change her gloves before helping me I wonder if she will change them now.”  He watched as she walked right back to the lunch counter and started slicing lunch meat.  He indicated she even saw him watching her and apparently it never occurred to her to wash her hands and change the gloves.

Was this employee never trained?

Did the employer assume hand washing is common sense?

Did she just not understand the risk she created because it was never explained properly?

My guess would be she was told about procedures but never taught proper methods and WHY it is so important to provide great service while preventing cross contamination by having good personal hygiene.  When I train managers and employees I make sure they understand WHY it is so important to engage in proper food safety techniques.

What can employers do today?  Train your staff!  It does not have to be the 16 hour food safety manager training course.  We offer a 2 hour employee training that is tailored to your facilities needs.