The FDA’s new Food Traceability Rule is taking aim at sources of contamination to reduce the number of foodborne illnesses and deaths in the U.S. It means that food businesses from farm to table will be responsible for adhering to a standardized record-keeping process that assigns codes to potentially risky foods. Items such as eggs, leafy greens, soft cheeses and other items will carry these codes in an effort to more quickly trace these items and remove them from the supply chain in the event of contamination. On March 16th, the National Restaurant Association held a webinar about the new rule, as well as various exceptions to it and strategies to comply. Restaurants looking to improve or sustain their food safety records have several hurdles to clear right now: Even if the business has solid training materials and is keeping up with increased onboarding of new employees, the restaurant could still fall short on the follow-up and allow a problem to slip by simply because it was not tracked. When a food safety problem occurs in your restaurant, what corrective action is required? Who is responsible for correcting it? How will a problem be tracked to ensure progress and prevent recurrence? Documenting your food safety procedures from start to finish and clarifying how you will manage the back end of an issue can help you ensure that the steps you take early on to protect safety are supported with strong follow through and a clear set of corrective actions. Your food safety program can’t be static. Evolving health risks, new staff and changing employee roles all make it important for restaurants to regularly track their adherence to – and communication of – their food safety procedures. Having an understanding of how you’re performing between inspections can help you adjust your training practices and even give you an opportunity to improve employee engagement by rewarding those who uphold your best practices (not simply penalizing those responsible after a food safety incident occurs). Steritech developed a quiz to help operators get a snapshot of how they are performing when it comes to food safety. It may serve as an extra tool to help you monitor what you do well and where you have room to improve. As flu season dovetails with the Covid-19 delta variant in the coming months, you can expect a rise in employee illnesses and even just false alarms that nonetheless require you to exercise extra caution when serving guests. The reservations platform Resy recently announced it is offering a free way for restaurants to track employees’ proof of Covid-19 vaccination, test results and other details used to track symptoms of illness. Restaurant Business reports that Resy has partnered with Clear to offer Clear’s Health Pass technology through 2022 to restaurants using Resy. |
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March 2024
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