Disconnect between food service and public health February 19, 2006

1. Disconnect between food service and public health February 19, 2006 Ben Chapman Brae Surgeoner Tanya MacLaurin University of Guelph bchapman@uoguelph.ca Doug Powell Food Safety Network Kansas State University dpowell@kstate.edu

2. Best headline of the week • Peanut butter lawsuits spreading • Associated press - February 17, 2007

3. Peanut butter, the new spinach • 23-year-old Katie Kuba, who looked skeptically at the peanut butter shelf at her neighborhood Shaw’s store in Dorchester after learning about the push to purge the shelves of Peter Pan, was quoted as saying: "It’s alarming that it’s something like peanut butter. You wouldn’t think peanut butter, it’s mostly spinach.” February 16, 2007 Boston Herald (MA)

5. Background - communication • “If you think the 10 commandments being posted in a school is going to change behavior of children, then you think “Employees Must Wash Hands” is keeping the piss out of your happy meals. It's not.” • Source: Jon Stewart, Saturday Night Live monologue, 2002

6. Public Disclosure Systems Regulator Relations Liability and Outbreaks Culture of safe food Communication, Training and Managerial Style

7. Food safety communication essentials • Rapid, relevant, reliable and repeated information • Compel; beyond just educating • Get it right; need to back up messages • From farm-to-fork • Evaluation

8. Project objectives • Explore how inspector’s and restaurant operator’s view current food safety management techniques • 30 interviews conducted (inspectors and operators) • Investigate factors that might impact on food safety • Inspection process • Inspector/operator relationships • Threat of litigation/profile of food safety • Disclosure systems

9. Findings - inspection process • Perception of impact on food safety varied by restaurant type • Chains versus independents • Limitations: • Frequency of inspection an issue • Differences between inspectors (subjectivity issues) • Chain of communication between restaurants • Overall: • Risk-based inspections welcomed by industry • Inspections needed - no inspections = no standards • Operators expect to be cited - may not always agree, but comply and learn from violations

10. Findings - threat of litigation/outbreaks • Litigation includes a compelling story and is engaging to operators • It’s not about the money/notoriety • Forces operators to ask questions -- be aware • How do we prevent this from happening to us? Really, it’s about human consciousness, it’s about not making someone sick.” Lawsuits? C’mon, what do I owe them, a roll of toilet paper? Really, what’s the big deal

11. Profile of food safety • Little attention paid to importance of food safety in jurisdiction without outbreak awareness • Chains were different • Information through corporate offices • Community with an outbreak in U.S. was different • lots of coverage, outrage, lawsuits

12. Findings - inspection process • What kind of information are we talking about? • What is the goal of the information? • How? “I view her as a coach, she has information that I need to protect my customers and my business”

13. Safety culture The set of beliefs, norms, attitudes, roles, and social and technical practices concerned with minimizing exposure of employees, managers, customers, and members of public to conditions considered dangerous Source: Turner, Pidgeon, Blockley, and Toft (1989)

14. Elements of a “good” safety culture • Norms and rules for handling hazards • What is / is not a significant risk • Appropriate response • Attitudes toward safety • Concern for outcome of dealing with risks • Internal motivation to conform • Reflexivity on safety practice • Learning process • Incident feedback and potential warnings Source: Pidgeon, 1991

15. Info sheets - project objectives • Raise awareness of current outbreak and food safety information • Encourage desired food hygiene practices within the target group of foodservice and retail employees • Shape food safety communication into more dialogical, and interactive exchange of information

17. Content results • About half of the employees never saw the sheets • Ones who did not like: too much text, too boring • Managers were the key to the process • Employees in back of house enjoy the information, • found some too basic: more trivia/ did you know • One restaurant withdrew, thought that the sheets were not useful to employees • heard similar concerns from delphi group

18. Redesign • Increase focus on what staff can do to reduce risk • Food illness links • Colour and graphics • Started out as stories, focus became the practices • Rapid and relevant • Less frequent, more applicable

19. Foodservice employee profile • Typical employee • Female (56%) • Under 30 years of age (52%) • High school graduate or less (65%) • Part-time employee, working average of 24.8 hours/week • Individual with a relatively short job tenure Source: National Restaurant Association, 2006

20. Rallying for the attention of an MTV generation

25. Does it change what you do? (self-reported) • Interviews and focus group • Stories major focus of interview • Unprobed -- handwashing increases • “We talk about it back there” • “I didn’t know that there were that many outbreaks” • One respondent cited time issues • “Aesthetically pleasing”

26. To date… • Distributed to 230 direct subscribers (fwd 2 to 40) • Posted in 86 restaurants, resorts, and institutional kitchens • Posted in 33 fraternities and sororities • Distributed by extension officers and public health inspectors in the U.S. and Canada • Online database of 295 info sheets - Nov 2002 • Use of blog as a new distribution channel • To come…translation into Chinese, French, and Spanish

27. www.foodsafety.ksu.edu bchapman@uoguelph.ca