 We all know it’s important to wash our hands – and chances are good that people on your team aren’t consciously walking around with contaminated hands. Yet in a demanding, fast-paced foodservice environment, it can be easy for handwashing to happen less frequently and less thoroughly than it should. But it’s so important: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one million deaths each year could be prevented if everyone routinely washed their hands – and a large percentage of foodborne disease outbreaks are spread by contaminated hands. Fortunately, technology is taking human error out of the equation for food safety tasks, to include handwashing. One case in point is the Handscanner, a device from PathSpot that is being dubbed the “handwashing lie detector.” The small device can be wall-mounted next to a handwashing sink. After a worker washes their hands with soap and water, then dries them with a paper towel, they place their hands under the scanner. Within a couple of seconds, the device uses non-UV LED imaging technology to identify residual contaminants on hands and wrists. The technology, which is used in healthcare settings, is able to detect contamination in hard-to-clean areas like under fingernails and around jewelry. It is already in use in 10,000 foodservice locations worldwide, including franchised Taco Bell, Arby’s and Chopt restaurants.
 Businesses across the foodservice industry’s supply chain face some changes under the FDA’s Food Traceability Rule (also known as Food Safety Modernization Act Section 204). The new regulation is intended to help businesses quickly identify and remove potentially contaminated foods from the food supply chain. While the change tends to focus more on food processors, distributors and other businesses operating higher up in the supply chain, restaurant operators should also be aware of any actions they will have to take between now and the January 2026 implementation deadline to ensure compliance. Specifically, restaurants that carry foods from the traceability list – food items ranging from cheeses to leafy greens that are more often implicated in food illness outbreaks – will have to meet specific record-keeping requirements. The National Restaurant Association’s website offers some resources to help operators determine if they will have to follow the traceability rule once it goes into effect, and what steps they should take in the coming months to prepare their businesses to comply if so.
 In the U.S., there are hundreds of millions of gloves used every day in medical and food settings. When people wear them, they are taking an action intended to protect the safety of their task. But what if this assumption of safety is misplaced? In a recent podcast promoted by Food Safety Magazine, food safety experts Francine Shaw and Matt Regusci interviewed Steve Ardagh, the CEO and Founder of Eagle Protect, about how regulations governing glove safety haven’t caught up with reality. Ardagh said FDA food compliance as it relates to gloves only focuses on chemical migration – not whether the gloves are actually clean or intact out of the box. Five years ago, Ardagh began working with the microbiologist Barry Michaels, who has researched glove and hand cleanliness extensively, to test the safety of gloves coming into the U.S. market. He said tests of 2800 gloves from 26 brands of medical and food-compliant gloves found that more than 50 percent of test samples had indicators of fecal matter, as well as 260 additional pathogens including E. coli, salmonella and listeria. Subsequently, they developed a test process to make sure the gloves reaching the U.S. have a good standard of cleanliness. It’s troubling news and underlines the importance of personal hygiene – and not relying on other products as a first line of defense when it comes to protecting food safety.
 Even if your staff is careful about cleaning and sanitizing food preparation surfaces, poor personal hygiene can drag down your restaurant’s food safety – or at least your guests’ perception of it. Transferring pathogens from one’s body – particularly hands – to food is the leading cause of foodborne-illness outbreaks at restaurants, according to the National Restaurant Association. Neglecting personal hygiene significantly increases the chances of transferring harmful pathogens onto food. Soiled uniforms, long hair that isn’t tied back away from the face, untrimmed nails, perspiration and jewelry can all contribute to the problem. Does your employee policy adequately cover personal hygiene practices? Consider fine-tuning standards around laundering uniforms before a shift, where to store soiled items so they don’t come into contact with food, how to keep long hair away from food, what jewelry is acceptable to wear while working, and where personal items should be stored during a shift. Break times that give staff an opportunity to refuel can also help ensure your team members present themselves well in front of guests – particularly in hot weather. Just make sure that any food or drink they consume is kept away from food preparation areas and equipment. And of course, reinforcing frequent and thorough handwashing practices throughout a shift and after breaks is probably the most important thing you can do to support your food safety each day.
 Preparing food in the warmer months can expose food to conditions that can make it decay more quickly. And even in cases where foods are carefully and consistently refrigerated, foodborne pathogens can still grow – particularly in food like produce and deli meats that are popular options in the summer months. This makes accurate food labeling especially important. However, according to the CDC, one-quarter of restaurants don’t label refrigerated and ready-to-eat foods with dates indicating when the foods are no longer safe to consume. This is more of an issue for independent restaurants than it is for chain restaurants, the agency found. But in the businesses where it is a problem, it’s also common to find labeling discrepancies between when a food was prepared and when it should be discarded. This can mean the difference between exposing guests to foodborne pathogens and not. In your operation, are there clear, consistent practices for labeling foods so that employees can interpret them easily? Further, are all items being stored on a first-in, first-out basis? Accurate food labeling and storage can help busy employees more easily notice, on the spot, when an item needs to be discarded.
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