 Keep pace with tech’s food safety risks
Technology has brought a number of safety-enhancing changes to foodservice kitchens: Sensor-connected appliances are helping to ensure foods are cooked to the proper temperatures, while voice-activated and touch-free technology are containing cross-contamination risks. However, some innovations have introduced new risks to manage. Tablets and other smart devices with touchscreens, specifically, can pose contamination risks, according to a new study by Queens University in Belfast, Ireland. During the study, participants had their hands and personal devices swabbed to analyze for bacteria. During a 30-minute cooking activity, they touched their smart device almost six times on average. After cooking, around 6 percent of pre-cleaned devices were contaminated with potential food-poisoning bacteria. A Food Safety News report about the study said using antibacterial wipes containing alcohol can reduce contamination on smart device surfaces. However, microbial analysis found that Salmonella and E. coli could survive on tablet touchscreens for more than 24 hours at room temperature, potentially contributing to cross-contamination. In the context of a large residential facility or a business serving vulnerable populations, a safety risk (whether in the front or back of the house) can multiply quickly. As foodservice practices evolve, so should food safety – and the training that supports it, according to food safety expert Francine Shaw. “I encourage food businesses to view advancements in food safety…as meaningful investments rather than mere expenses,” she said in a recent report from Quality Assurance Magazine. “When implemented effectively, the return on investment can be substantial. These initiatives can help minimize recalls, lower labor costs, enhance consumer trust, reduce foodborne illnesses and ultimately save lives.”  When you’re serving a high volume of guests while perhaps also onboarding new staff, working with a reduced team, or managing a new menu in the kitchen, it can be easy for the details of an order to get lost in translation. If you serve guests with visual or hearing impairments or compromised immune systems, or if you’re in charge of keeping track of the health details of the people you’re serving, those risks can climb exponentially. As a result, a person may be served food that triggers an allergy or worsens a health condition. Your ordering technology, paired with training, can be critical here. When you can connect your digital order to a kitchen display system, you shorten the chain of people between the guest and the person preparing the dish – and ensure the item that the guest ordered is the one seen by the person preparing it. Your ordering technology can involve multiple senses, so a guest’s directions are less likely to be misunderstood. It also helps you ensure that menu updates are made in real time, so the ingredient you had to substitute on your menu today is clear to the person ordering it (who may have placed the same order yesterday and assumes they are getting the exact dish). Beyond tech, your training can help your staff understand the “why” behind your food safety practices. If they appreciate what can go wrong when a guest is served an incorrect dish (as well as the significant amount of trust a guest is placing with them to get things right), they are more likely to take steps to clarify and verify the person’s order.
 Food allergies affect nearly 11 percent of adults and 8 percent of children, sending 200,000 people to the hospital in the U.S. each year. As a result, chances are good that every day, you’re having to respond to guest questions and concerns about allergens in your menu items. Being able to do this during busy shifts, smoothly and without creating bottlenecks, requires tools that allow your staff to have access to allergen information at their fingertips so they can steer guests toward foods that are safer for them. As a recent report from Modern Restaurant Management explains, restaurants can accomplish this with an up-to-date POS that is connected with their kitchen and can show real-time information about food allergens based on the menu items being offered in that moment. Combine this with payment technologies that allow the guest to input information about their allergies up front, thereby immediately omitting any menu items that could be problematic for them, and restaurants can significantly reduce their potential “points of failure” around food allergies. Doing so isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s also good for business, considering that food allergy sufferers are a loyal group. When you can provide a meal that is safe and enjoyable for a guest, they are apt to favor your restaurant in the future and recommend it to others who struggle with allergies as well.
 That may not necessarily be the case. Food safety regulators often have stories about finding health and safety hazards in restaurants known for having strong safety cultures. Food safety consultant Francine Shaw experienced one recently while visiting a restaurant brand known for its food safety: She used the restroom and found that the sink wasn’t working, then reported it to an employee who shrugged in response. Unfortunately, all it takes is one understaffed store, or one employee who doesn’t take their responsibility to protecting safety seriously, to threaten the safety record of a business. So what can operators do? Developing and maintaining a culture committed to safety is a process that starts at the top of the business, trickles down to all employees and needs ongoing reinforcement. It helps to develop and benchmark training programs that can keep track of training progress and areas for improvement. Understand what tools and people the team needs to protect safety. (Technology can be a useful aid here but it shouldn’t be a crutch or a replacement for knowing how to protect the safety of the business.) Adopt the mindset of a regulator when assessing your food safety standards. Where might there be pitfalls that could threaten your safety record?
 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.
 How tech can take safety, quality and compliance concerns off your plate
If you’re managing a continuous cycle of having to do more with less – like juggling more work across a smaller crew, for example, or having to conduct more onboarding training with fewer longtime staff on your roster – it can be easy for your food safety and quality to slip through the cracks. Fortunately, tech tools can help you ensure you’re upholding key standards regardless of what’s happening and which employees are staffed during a shift. As Restaurant Technology News reported recently, tech-driven support can include everything from prompts to wash hands during busy periods to reminders about completing compliance tasks across multiple locations. Looking at your operation, where are manual processes still in use? Where do you see your standards slipping – or see potential for that to happen? Looking externally, do all of your suppliers share your commitment to safety and have mechanisms in place to protect it, or is there room to make changes for the better? When automated tools are in place, you’re able to manage business more effectively with fewer people and you also stand to make your employees’ jobs a little easier, which can help with morale and retention.  At your restaurant, do in-person safety audits feel like a relic of the pre-pandemic era, or have you reverted back to those routines? In a recent report from Modern Restaurant Management, Kari Hensien of RizePoint says the shift to remote audits and self-inspections may be one of the best things to come from the pandemic: It has made it possible for restaurants to audit more frequently and with a combination of tools. As a result, audits may feel less like intimidating events and more like ongoing check-ups designed to support continuous improvement. While an in-person presence has its benefits too, taking full advantage of technology as an auditing tool can help you spot small problems more quickly and with greater precision. When the required course-correction is minor and feels less punitive, staff morale is likely to benefit too.
 At a time when you’re likely working with a smaller staff and/or onboarding new employees on a regular basis, it’s especially important to be able to deliver food safety training that keeps pace with a wide range of training needs. Technology is of critical help here. Are you currently able to use digital tools to provide your team with short training videos or on-demand guidance from any device – as well as track employees’ progress in meeting training objectives? Doing so is an efficient way to ensure you stay in compliance with regulations and protect food safety. Ask Team Four for help in using technology to deliver targeted training that helps protect your food safety program.
 If you’re like many operators managing a high degree of employee turnover right now, you’re having to prioritize both constant onboarding of new and/or temporary staff, as well as enhanced cleaning procedures. If you’re continuing to use any manual processes to conduct and track safety checks, this can enable staff to tick boxes on checklists without actually completing necessary tasks, exposing your operation to food safety problems. Using a digital system to ensure safety protocols are followed can also make it easier to conduct self-audits between third-party audits, so you can ensure your business stays on track between inspections.
 Delivering food safety training and staying on top of hazards was challenging enough for foodservice businesses before the pandemic. Now that these businesses are short-staffed and trying to stay ahead of worker turnover, it’s even more difficult – and has accelerated efforts to use technology to ensure food safety. That has been the case for Wendy’s, which has been working with NSF International to use their EyeSucceed smart glasses to protect food safety. Nation’s Restaurant News says the augmented reality glasses allow real-time, two-way, hands-free communication used for inspections, approvals, trainings and demonstrations for one person or many at once. Could you outsource any of your food safety training to tech?
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