Do digital orders represent a high percentage of your overall sales? According to data from the National Restaurant Association, digital orders comprised 16 percent of all foodservice orders in 2023, more than triple the pre-pandemic share. This may call for new approaches to managing food safety. Foodservice businesses cause the highest number of foodborne illness outbreaks each year, according to the CDC. While the CDC doesn’t currently track foodborne illness outbreaks resulting from digital online orders or delivery from foodservice businesses, these orders create new vulnerabilities for the industry. As a recent Food Safety Magazine article explained, digital orders can rapidly increase the scale of orders coming into a restaurant, making it easier for safety monitoring tasks to slip through the cracks. There is more room for miscommunication to food handlers regarding allergen-free meals, or for allergen messaging that is central to the in-restaurant ordering process to be overlooked in digital channels. Placing orders in the hands of delivery drivers introduces additional risks. Technology can help businesses manage many of these hazards – by automating preparation tasks, housing allergen data online, and dialing down the volume of digital orders when needed, for example. But safety plans are needed to back up these tools. That includes having a process HACCP plan for every menu item prepared in the kitchen – especially the items most commonly ordered for delivery. Managers can also help ensure ingredients approved for a recipe aren’t substituted in the moment. In the event of a surge in digital orders, designated digital prep lines can help protect the safety of orders for delivery. Businesses preparing food in a ghost kitchen that processes orders for other brands can introduce food safety specifications to protect their menu and manage cross-contamination risks. Finally, training employees on the approved preparation method for each menu item, including the hazard controls for each dish, can serve as a safety net that reinforces all other controls.

In your restaurant, to what extent do your staff simply expect to find intermittent food safety issues with the ingredients you bring into your business? A recent Food Safety Magazine article describes how in food processing facilities, there seems to be a focus on controlling as opposed to preventing certain food safety hazards. In other words, comments like “We expect to find Listeria in our plant” have become common. But this response is more about fighting fires than preventing them from happening – and this creates risks that trickle down to foodservice operations. When a food safety issue is tolerated and corrected on the spot without further action, tolerance becomes encouraged. From there, the problem is likely to become more common – for both the food processor and the restaurants downstream that serve its products. So within your foodservice business, how do you stop this downward drift in food safety standards? When someone on your team finds a problem, are they clear about what to do next? Do you have procedures in place to make sure the supplier is notified and can explain what sustainable steps they will take to prevent the issue from recurring? Finding weak points in your food safety procedures (internally and up the supply chain) and then taking prompt action can help ensure you’re not in permanent firefighting mode when it comes to your food safety.

Some facets of food safety can’t be delegated to machines — equipment still needs to be cleaned, technology can malfunction, and staff need to understand how they can manually manage and protect food safety and quality in your operation. However, at a time when foodservice businesses need to use all of the staff they have available without cutting corners on key tasks, automation (supported through a kitchen’s interconnected sensors) can be critical in streamlining tasks and reducing costs. As a recent report from Modern Restaurant Management explains, these benefits are evident in restaurants using digitized logbooks and food monitoring systems. In real time, they can alert staff to early warning signs that a food safety issue is present, then trigger automated actions in response. Such tools can also ensure that potential food safety risks are caught after hours when no one is on your premises — a helpful benefit when severe weather is becoming a more frequent threat in many parts of the country.

​The rise of automation in restaurants has promised benefits including greater efficiency, consistency and revenue. (For example, a recent report about Sweetgreen’s first robotic Infinite Kitchen say the location has delivered restaurant-level margins of 31 percent, a 45 percent reduction in employee turnover, and a ten percent increase in check sizes.) As the minimum wage increases and restaurants continue to face other pressures, the drive for automation will only continue. But is food safety keeping up? Food safety expert Francine Shaw expressed some doubts in a recent podcast. She relayed how she had been asked to review the policies and procedures of a restaurant that was already operating automated restaurants in a number of states. But they lacked a HACCP plan and had no food safety management or personal hygiene plan of any kind. She made recommendations to this business but they decided not to follow them because of the expense. Such examples raise concerns: When the machines supporting a foodservice operation need to be broken down and cleaned every few hours, will the staff be trained and available to do that? Will the business be able to demonstrate to their insurer that automation is resulting in stronger food safety results? Food safety won’t be an automatic result of automation — it will require a plan that keeps pace with the advancement in other parts of a business.

Protect the safety of prepared foods


Ready-to-eat convenience foods represent a growing portion of sales for restaurant brands across categories. Research from Innova Market Research found that three in five consumers are using convenience foods at least once per week, while one in five are using them more than once per day. As restaurants look to meet this rising demand, however, they also face new potential risks with regard to food safety (not to mention food waste). If you’re offering more convenience foods nowadays, is there room for you to manage these risks more effectively using staff training, improving hygiene practices or refining the organization of your prepared foods case? For example, if you have an excess amount of a protein near the end of its shelf life and incorporate it into a soup or sandwich for your prepared foods case, how are you ensuring that it is served for the right amount of time before being removed? If you discount these foods in order to clear them, how can you preserve guest trust in your food safety? How can you push the envelope with ingredient innovation with these foods and ensure your food safety practices keep pace with those changes as needed? A recent report from Food Safety Magazine outlines some of the risks that these foods can pose — and the questions operators can ask themselves to make sure they are making the most of the opportunity to capture guest interest in fresh-prepared foods while minimizing their risks.

​September is National Food Safety Education Month, so it’s a natural time to weave some employee training, games, competitions, rewards and other team engagement activities into your routine. Consider your operation’s bottlenecks, weak points, or other areas that can suffer when you’re short- staffed. Where could your team’s knowledge be improved incrementally this month so you’re in a stronger position to approach the challenges of flu season and the holidays? If you’re looking for some guidance or prepackaged training materials, the FDA and National Restaurant Association offer a range of free resources to share with staff that you might also use as the basis of contests. If you’re proud of your food safety record to date, National Food Safety Education Month is also an opportunity to share your wins with guests — or simply your commitment to keeping them safe. Even a few years post-pandemic, consumers continue to perceive safety as a key pillar of your hospitality.

A food safety culture tends to generate the best engagement when business leaders are committed to it and weave it into their everyday actions and conversations. But what if your business is in the position of having to persuade senior management of the importance of investing more in its food safety culture? It takes some managing up. But if you approach leaders strategically, you can demonstrate how it’s in their best interest to support and promote food safety as a business value instead of simply a requirement. In a recent podcast for Food Safety Magazine, Nuno Soares, food safety consultant, trainer and author of the new book How to Sell Food Safety: 3-1/2 Steps to Increase Your Chances of Being Heard, spoke about how he advises food safety workers to approach business leaders. Approach it with an understanding of what motivates the leader. Will they do anything to avoid a financial loss? Are they more motivated by the promise of a better future and are willing to take risks along the way to get it? Provide some data to reinforce the potential direct and indirect consequences of doing nothing. What is the potential impact on sales, costs, penalties, employee morale and talent retention? Soares recommends starting the meeting by stating the problem you’re facing, then explaining the stakes. Follow that with a broad plan you’d like to use to generate the positive outcomes you have in mind (and how you can minimize the potential negative ones). Finally, make sure there is a clear call to action at the end – like an agreement, a next meeting on the calendar, or information about the target budget – anything to overcome the likelihood of a delay in proceeding. 

​Only 49 percent of companies have a formal food safety culture plan, according to a recent survey from Quality Assurance Magazine. Is yours among them? And even if it is, does your plan lay the right groundwork for a strong food safety culture throughout your organization? In the hectic day-to-day management of a restaurant, it can be difficult to take a step back from tactical safety procedures and consider your approach to food safety from a broader, more strategic perspective. But doing so can help you ensure you’re not just ticking items off a checklist, but that you’re protecting the reputation and longevity of your business. In a recent report in Modern Restaurant Management, food safety expert Francine Shaw mentions the key ingredients that make for a robust plan. The plan should go beyond policies and tap into a key goal that can be baked into employees’ attitudes, behaviors and overall values. To accomplish this, employees have to understand the “why” behind the plan. For example, what can go wrong for a guest or the business when food safety isn’t prioritized? Who are the human faces behind foodborne illness? Reinforce these messages in ongoing training that holds people accountable, empowers them to take action and speak up when they have concerns, and rewards them for upholding your standards. Use technology to take what you already do well and elevate it – with real-time safety prompts, transparency, and additional data that informs you of areas that need attention. All of these messages will have greater power when your restaurant’s leaders demonstrate their commitment to them and set an example for the rest of the business.

Making tasks around your business easier, faster and simpler carries a lot of weight when it comes to retaining staff and ensuring your training procedures stick with them. It can also reduce your food safety risk – no technology required. For example, the conventional rag-and-bucket approach to cleaning and sanitizing is prone to human error and cross-contamination because of the complex and time-consuming steps involved in preparing the solution, as a recent report from QSR Web explains. If you have workers who speak English as a second language or are just joining your team, it’s that much easier for mistakes to happen. If this is a bottleneck for you, could single-use sanitizing wipes help relieve pressure during especially busy periods – or on days when your staff is stretched thin? Where could the introduction of new tools or procedures save your staff time or make cleaning tasks easier? Monitor where your staff has to spend time – and what jobs consume the most of it. Using dispensers that minimize waste, posting checklists of necessary tasks in handy locations, and making it possible for staff to reach cleaning wipes or other supplies with one hand may sound like tiny changes, but they might help you make incremental improvements to your restaurant’s overall hygiene.

Your kitchen and discarded waste can be magnets for flies and other pests in the summer. While pesticides can get rid of pests in your business, they’re really just a temporary solution – particularly if you don’t eliminate the reason they are attracted to your facility and their ability to enter it. Your food safety culture plays an important role here. The investments you make in this area can help you avoid having to spend continuously on a pest management program. Putting in the time and effort to protect your sanitation day to day is critical. That includes ensuring your team isn’t giving pests easy points of entry into your facility and that they’re cleaning surfaces and equipment deeply enough, even when it seems there isn’t enough time to do it. Food Safety Magazine advises businesses to define responsibilities around integrated pest management in their facility and develop SMART goals for staff to uphold them. Discuss pest management in meetings and review and recommendations from your pest control company with them. Train them to identify ways to make ongoing improvements and empower them to respond, so a minor slip-up doesn’t have a chance to balloon into an infestation.