Whether it's quick service or white tablecloth, food safety violations do not discriminate. Consider the ways to avoid being the next perpetrator.

One of my company’s clients wanted to find out exactly what its staff was missing or doing wrong when it came to food safety. Before any training was implemented, I was asked to note all of the violations I witnessed throughout the course of service for one evening.

The establishment that I surveyed is an independently owned fine-dining restaurant where the average age of the kitchen staff and servers is around 25. The question you might want to ask yourself as you read the following lists is: “Could any of these things be happening in my establishment?”

In the prep area of the kitchen where food products are cleaned, chopped, sliced, diced and pre-cooked, I found the following food safety violations:
  ·  A tray of chicken breasts was on a shelf where the juices could have easily dripped onto the raw vegetables on the table below.
  ·  A knife that was used to fillet fish wasn’t properly washed and sanitized before it was used to chop onions.
  ·  Meat, fish and poultry products were unnecessarily left out at room temperature.
  ·  Prep cooks did not wash their hands regularly in between handling meats, fish and produce.
  ·  When they did wash their hands, it was a quick, two-second rinse under water without soap.
  ·  The walk-in door was left open for long periods.

As service started and the guests started placing their orders, I proceeded to the kitchen line to see what they were up to. This is what I saw:
  ·  Steaks, chicken and fish were unnecessarily out at room temperature.
  ·  Hands were not properly washed after handling food, or after an employee touched his or her hair or face.
  ·  A cook made very little effort to shield a cough from the food in front of him.
  ·  The same bowl was used to mix salads throughout the evening without being washed.

Next, I moved to the service area to see what the servers and bussers were up to. I saw the following food safety no-no’s:
  ·  Servers and bussers almost never washed their hands. I even saw two of them eat a piece of bread and not wash their hands.
  ·  A server ate food off a guest’s plate.
  ·  The paper towel dispenser in the service area was empty.
  ·  Silverware was often touched above the handle and glassware was touched on the rim.

At the bar, I saw some equally disturbing events:
  ·  The ice scoop was left in the ice throughout the evening.
  ·  After a glass was broken, the surrounding area was not properly scoured for broken pieces of glass.
  ·  Again, silverware and glassware were touched directly on the eating and drinking surfaces.
  ·  Money was handled constantly with very little hand-washing afterward.
  ·  Opened beer bottles were touched on the rim.
  ·  Fruit containers weren’t washed before being refilled.
  ·  Straws were touched on their tops before being put into guests’ drinks.

Finally, while eating a meal at a table in the dining room, I saw the following things occur, which any fellow patron could easily have spotted:
  ·  Food was delivered with the server’s thumb accidentally touching a piece of food on the plate.
  ·  A server was seen fiddling with her hair.
  ·  A few female servers wore excessive jewelry, which is a perfect place for bacteria to hide.
  ·  As empty glasses were cleared from a table, a busser actually placed his fingers inside three glasses so he could carry them all at once with one hand.

Assessing the Damage
Although many of these violations, unfortunately, are common occurrences in most restaurants, a few of them are not. The lack of hand washing throughout the staff was alarming, especially after handling commonly contaminated items such as money and raw meats. The server eating food off of a guest’s plate is another one that sticks out, but it’s really the inconspicuous violations that can hurt the most people.

For example, the chicken breasts sitting on a shelf over the tray of vegetables in the prep area is potentially catastrophic. If the juices of the chicken drip onto the vegetables and the vegetables are served raw, a Salmonella outbreak is imminent.

The meats left out at room temperature on the kitchen line is another potential disaster. As bacteria reproduces and accumulates on the meat while it is out, it becomes less safe. A medium-rare steak that has been left out for four hours before being cooked is a food-borne illness incident waiting to happen.

I was also disappointed in what I was able to see from the guest’s perspective in the dining room. After all, if this is what is out in the open, imagine what’s going on in the kitchen and other areas that are hidden from the guests.

Lack of Effort
After documenting everything I saw throughout the evening and reporting it to the managers, they asked me what my thoughts were on how the staff could be this negligent when it came to food-safety practices. After all, all of their managers, chefs and sous chefs are certified according to state regulations and whenever they see something wrong, they let the offending employee know about it.

Was it the way they were training (or not training)? Was it that the employees don’t care about food safety? And most importantly, what could they do to improve the situation in their restaurant, thus improving their guests’ dining experience and protecting the brand name?

The answer I gave them was that they weren’t making a strong enough effort to create a learning culture within the restaurant in which proper food-safety practices were constantly at the forefront of every employee’s mind.

Where to Start
I told managers that implementing a food-safety training program for all of their food-handling employees was a good start, but they needed to use that as a foundation for their entire food-safety program.

Besides proper training, the following are other effective ways of making sure your employees are constantly mindful of food safety:
  ·  Monitor your employees’ hand washing. If you see them touch something potentially contaminated and then not wash, don’t be afraid to call them out on it.
  ·  Make it someone’s sidework to fill paper towels and soap at every sink at the beginning of each shift.
  ·  Touch on at least one food-safety guideline during every shift meeting. Keep hammering the same points over and over -they’ll get it eventually.
  ·  Conduct your own food-safety audit every few weeks and document violations.
  ·  Approach each offender and explain to him or her exactly what they did wrong and how it could hurt someone.

You can always “teach” somebody something, but the importance lies in making him or her realize why he or she is learning it.

When it comes to food safety, it is your guests’ well-being that should be your employees’ top priority.  FAD

Lee Biars, director of industry relations for Safe Food Solutions, can be reached at 443-451-5522 or via e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .