American Red Cross workers must complete an online food safety education course called “Basic Food Safety.”

“E.coli Contamination at a Local Fast Food Chain,”; “Hepatitis A Spreads Across Nation Through Produce”; “Restaurant Shuts Down Due to Health Code Violations”; “Nationwide Recall of Popular Food Product” – these are the types of headlines you usually see when an incident related to food safety hits the newspapers and major media outlets. What often gets overlooked in the papers are the trendsetters that are going above and beyond in maintaining high food safety standards for their operation.

Through the use of technology, specifically the Internet, organizations are taking advantage of the ease of implementation that technology-based food safety education can provide to food handlers. In an effort to be “glass-half-full,” let’s take this opportunity to highlight some of the companies that are using technology to maintain a high standard of food safety within their organizations.

Seeing Red
When you think of the American Red Cross (ARC), you probably think of giving blood. What many do not realize is that this nonprofit organization is primarily responsible for helping people in need of food and/or shelter, especially after a natural disaster has occurred.    

In the wake of the recent wild fires in Southern California, the ARC has provided more than 100,000 meals and 25,000 overnight stays for residents in need. Not only did it make sure people had enough volunteers to prepare the meals, but they also saw to it that each ARC worker completed an online food safety education course, “Basic Food Safety.” With the ease and flexibility of technology-based implementation, the ARC was able to react quickly to get computers on-site and train volunteers as they were signing up. Not only did the wildfire survivors get a hot meal, but they received a safe one as well. The ARC made sure of that.

As a part-time feeding “establishment,” ARC was tasked to set up, prepare and serve food in a wide variety of sites and circumstances, so it needed to find a convenient solution to on-the-spot food safety training. “‘Basic Food Safety’ meets our basic needs for our workers to be able to have consistent training sent out to them,” according to Scott Meyer, program administrator for the ARC.

“Your personal hygiene, sanitation – your basic stuff – that’s what we want for our workers,” he adds. Meyer also stated that it was important for the ARC to be able to train its workers in about an hour and the time saved would keep them on the task of helping people in need. In all, it found that an online basic food safety-training course met its needs for workers when the organization is calledon for disaster-response feeding.

Clean Bill of Health
Many foodservice establishments turn to their city or county health department when they are looking to implement food safety training. Luckily for them, health departments are working to keep up with the growing trend of using technology as a means to educate restaurant and foodservice employees.

Over the past year, health departments have been implementing online food safety training programs so that when they get a call from a foodservice establishment, they are able to direct them to a Web site where the manager can register the location and instantly begin training employees using an online-based tutorial.

In many cases, health departments get a bad rap in the restaurant industry because operators often feel the department is trying to “shut them down” or inconvenience them for a health code violation, whether major or minor. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, more often than not a health department does everything in its power to help a restaurant get up to code when it comes to food safety. Offering online training courses for line-level employees is one great example of this.

Every health department’s primary goal is to ensure the safety of the public when they eat outside of the home and they know the best way to do that is to provide restaurateurs with a wide variety of tools to run a safe foodservice establishment. Health departments nationwide are finding that offering and promoting online food safety training is an immense help to operators in their jurisdictions.

Taking the Initiative
There are a few restaurant chains that are taking it upon themselves to make sure that each and every employee is trained in food safety using an online program. Large chains with larger budgets and expansive internal resources such as Jack in the Box and McDonald’s, have been recognized for their rigorous commitment to high food safety standards.  

But through the use of technology, smaller companies are finding that it is possible to maintain equally high standards in their locations. 

One such small-to-midsize chain that has gone above and beyond is Greystone Grill, a Mid-Atlantic steak and seafood restaurant. In order to provide consistent and effective training for all of its employees, Greystone Grill developed an entire online training suite that teaches employees everything from company policies, to how to perform their job responsibilities, to the basics of wine and cocktails.

Also bundled into this training suite is an entire module on food safety. Before any employee is allowed to work their first shift, they must have completed training and passed a final course assessment in each training module.

“With online training, we are able to keep up with the Outbacks of the world when it comes to training our employees,” Corporate Chef Scott Walker says. “We know that when an employee shows up for work, they are aware of how to perform their job, they know how to handle food safely, and know our in-store policies. It’s this type of consistency that allows us to continue to grow as a company without compromising the quality of our training.”

With a fairly aggressive growth strategy for a fine-dining chain, Greystone Grill makes sure there are no roadblocks when it comes to how it trains employees in food safety – or anything else, for that matter.

Getting to the Point
Although you may or may not have ever considered the use of technology to train your employees on food safety, know that it is possible, regardless of your company’s size, budget and/or current technological capabilities. Others are doing it and have paved the way for the solutions to be affordable, flexible and convenient.  

At the very least, if you are afraid of taking the technology plunge and are committed to your manuals, worksheets and filing system, explore your options and see if technology-based food safety training could be right for your foodservice establishment. In this age of iPods, cell phones, PDAs, flat screen TVs and laptop computers, it seems foolish to not at least consider using modern technology to improve the way your company operates.

Think of providing consistent and cost-effective food safety training through online deployment as a great way to get your feet wet.

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