Hagerstown firm helps people be savvy about food safety

Mike Lewis
• 

  Mike Lewis

   
 Published
July 15, 2018, HeraldMailMedia.com

After a lifetime in the food service industry, Francine Shaw still says there's nothing better "than a Friday evening rush that goes well."


"(But) if it's not done well and it's not done right, people can get sick and die," she said. "And that's why we're here."


Shaw is president of Savvy Food Safety Inc., which recently moved from McConnellsburg, Pa., into new quarters in the Mulberry Lofts, 22 N. Mulberry St. in Hagerstown. The company employs four people and several independent contractors, offering training, inspections, curriculum development, crisis management and related services.



"We train everybody from food handlers to CEOs," Shaw said.


The new space includes offices, a conference room, and a training facility. A testing center is being developed.


"It’s been an exciting year of positive changes for our organization. First, we’ve rebranded our former company, Food Safety Training Solutions, to become Savvy Food Safety Inc., because we’re much more than just a training company. We’re food safety subject matter experts, offering a robust roster of services, including training, crisis management, curriculum development, HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) plans, inspections and more,” Shaw said in a news release. "We also speak globally about food safety issues and regularly contribute content and expertise to numerous media outlets."


The company also creates food safety videos for its clients. It also works to help companies update their food safety protocols, including moving away from the pencil-and-paper methods to software systems.


Shaw said her interest in the subject comes naturally. Her grandparents owned a general store, and her parents had a grocery for a time.


"When I was 15 years old, I started out as a fry girl in a fast-food restaurant," she recalled.


She spent a couple of decades with that company and its successor, working her way up through the ranks. She found she enjoyed the training aspect of the industry. Eventually, she got into training full time. Then she started her own company.



Shaw has been featured as a food safety expert in media outlets that range from the Dr. Oz Show to Food Management Magazine, according to the news release. The Savvy Food Safety team has more than 100 combined years of industry experience in restaurants, casinos and convenience stores. They’ve helped numerous clients — including McDonald’s, Subway, Marriott, Domino’s, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America, Dairy Queen and Omni Hotel and Resorts — prevent foodborne illnesses.


Shaw said it's a big problem. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year 48 million people get sick from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 will die.


"The numbers are staggering. They're 100 percent preventable," she said.


Shaw says there's a monetary cost, too — some $55.5 billion a year in everything from recalls to legal fees.


"It can happen to anybody," she said. "All it takes is one mistake."

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

By Francine L. Shaw |  Published May 1, 2018, on FESMag.com

Foodservice professionals work long, arduous days in the kitchen. While it’s important that their environment is attractive, it’s even more critical that it’s safe and efficient. Never choose a gorgeous kitchen design at the expense of safety and efficiency. Commercial kitchens must utilize sturdy, easy-to-clean materials, have a layout that minimizes cross-contamination risks and include designated equipment and prep areas for guests with food allergies.

I recently met a restaurant owner that invested significant money redesigning his restaurant without considering safety issues. His new kitchen didn’t meet codes. Unfortunately, he had to demolish the kitchen and rebuild. This was an additional, and significant, expense. It also delayed the restaurant’s reopening by several months.
Smart Choices

I love high-gloss marble and porcelain floor tile. It’s beautiful, but it’s a potential disaster in a commercial kitchen. Don’t choose materials that are dangerous, such as slippery floor tile, or anything that is hard to keep clean, might chip or break easily, or won’t withstand heavy use. Chips, cracks, and breaks in tile or other materials lead to bacteria growth and health code violations. Use easy-to-clean stainless steel backsplashes behind high-heat appliances, anti-microbial countertop materials, nonslip flooring materials, fiberglass reinforced panels for walls, and safe lighting, which means without exposed lightbulbs.

It’s thrilling to pick out new equipment for a restaurant, but keep in mind who will be operating it. Be certain your kitchen staff has the appropriate skills to manage the equipment. If the kitchen staff can’t operate the equipment appropriately and safely, it’s useless — and dangerous.

Refrigeration equipment is incredibly important. Decide on the appropriate amount of space for the anticipated volume, then add extra space in case the restaurant exceeds expectations. There was a time when I managed a restaurant that we had to erect a custom-built unit in the parking lot for additional dry storage and a walk-in cooler because sales were double the original projection. While I was thrilled with the sales, the stock rotation and inventory were a nightmare.

You’ve heard the phrase “Everything but the kitchen sink.” While on a consultation project, I visited a new build where they actually forgot the kitchen sink. Of course, it’s much easier to include a sink — or any equipment — during the design phase than it is to add it later. They ended up installing a sink right beside the dough mixer, which was a horrible — and unsafe — location. Sinks shouldn’t be next to equipment like that dough mixer, where dirty dishwater could contaminate the food. Instead, locate dishwashing areas near the kitchen entrance to streamline dropping off dirty dishes.

Holding areas for hot and cold food items that are ready for serving are incredibly important and frequently miscalculated. This can cause backups in the kitchen, or worse, prevent food from being held at the proper temperature, which could cause a foodborne illness outbreak.

It’s critical to consider function, efficiency, and safety when designing commercial kitchens to maximize guests’ health and reduce — or even better, eliminate — risks.

The Difference Between Food Safety Education and Food Safety Training

By Francine Shaw

In my opinion as a food safety expert, there's a huge difference between food safety education and food safety training. Food safety education is an ongoing effort to teach food service professionals about more than just the "basics." It's helping them understand why food safety is so important, the proper protocols to follow, how to prevent contamination, etc. – on an ongoing basis. Think of it this way: Do you want your children to attend sex education or sex training?

Food safety education is critical. Maybe that's where the food safety problems lie: food safety must be looked at as an education program rather than part of a one-time training program where the material isn't reinforced or remembered.

I was recently speaking to a friend who asked me, “How do we make people really care about food safety?” We work in two different arenas within the food service industry. Having an extensive background in the industry, I want to think everyone does care and I tend to get immediately defensive about this issue, and the industry as a whole. But the fact is, there are some in the business who only care about profitability and don't give two hoots about safe food. Will we ever be able to reach those individuals and convince them that food safety is important? I don't know…but I give it my best shot every day.

I believe that most food service operators, corporations, and private entities do care about serving safe food, but that wasn't really what my friend's question was about. If you're a CEO, stockholder or key executive, you have much more at stake in the business, and much more reason to care about food safety. If your restaurant has a foodborne illness outbreak, the damage it would cause (lowered profits, falling stocks, consumer mistrust), would hit these folks where it hurts. His question was more about how we make the entry level restaurant employees care about food safety? It's a major obstacle that every company in the food service industry faces. That evening, I thought about this dilemma for hours.

While I believe a solid food safety culture begins at the top of an organization, many of the fundamentals of that culture must be implemented by entry-level employees as well as management. As we've seen over the past few years, there's often a breakdown in execution, resulting in foodborne illness outbreaks. If entry level (or any level) employees don't care about food safety, they may not make the extra effort to wash their hands often, remove their aprons before using the restrooms, properly clean and sanitize equipment, etc.

I'm going out on a limb and guessing that in at least a few of recent cases of foodborne illness outbreaks, the employees had received food safety training, had proper tools, and the companies had proper policies and procedures in place. Yet, the foodborne illness incidents still occurred. Why?

First and foremost, I'm an educator. I believe that for someone to care, they must understand. Employees need to understand that if they came to work with vomiting and/or diarrhea, didn't wash their hands properly after using the restroom and handled food or equipment, it could cause a Norovirus outbreak – potentially sickening guests, harming the brand, and costing them their job. They need to understand that if ground beef is not cooked to 155°F, someone could get E.coli and die. Do these employees truly understand why they must cook poultry to 165°F, and not cross-contaminate raw proteins (poultry, meats, eggs) with ready-to-eat foods? Or was their food safety training program an exercise in futility? Did their employer train them because the task is a regulatory/corporate requirement, but soon all lessons from training were forgotten?

Restaurants' food safety education programs should achieve positive, measurable results. A solid technology infrastructure will make the education process seamless. Instructors must be dynamic, personable, engaging, and positive, making the material relevant and memorable.

It's essential to implement an ongoing, continuing food safety education process to maximize successes. Measure your program's successes with third-party inspections, mystery shoppers, and follow-up software programs. These programs and solutions can be implemented regardless of a company's goals or budget, helping them effectively, efficiently, and safely run their operations.

Reward systems are incredibly effective, so reward your employees for participating in education programs and implementing the protocols they've learned. Rewards can be simple and inexpensive: a paid day off, pizza parties, movie passes, etc. Make them feel appreciated. Rewards don't always need to be monetary, not everyone is motivated by money.

I believe that we can get more people to care about food safety by properly educating them on this topic. To maximize successes, emphasize food safety education, explain why food safety protocols are important, model proper behaviors, and reward employees for following proper procedures. By properly educating employees – and getting them to care about food safety – we can reduce the foodborne illness incidents and risks.

Not All Business Trips Go According to Plan

By Francine L. Shaw

Those of you that follow me know that I do a significant amount of travel. There are weeks that my business requires me to make four or five flights to meet with clients, give presentations, etc. I have become quite adept at getting from point A to point B, but even with experience, there can be challenges. How we choose to deal with those trials reflects how we deal with life in general (in my opinion) and, in turn, will determine our success in whatever we set out to accomplish.

Just a few days ago, I left my office for a trip to give a presentation. On my way to the airport, I received a notification that there was a flight delay.  I thought that’s not a problem, it’s to be expected this time of year with seasonal thunderstorms. A bit later, I got another notification that the flight is back on schedule – sometimes pilots make up a bit of time in flight. Great news! When I got to my gate, the flight was delayed again.  Now, this just makes me laugh – when stuff happens that’s beyond your control, there’s nothing you can do but embrace it. Several people are quite upset, even though the delay was only about 30 minutes, not several hours. We boarded the plane and made the three-hour flight without issue until we landed. Multiple flights landed within minutes of each other, and there was a shortage of flight bridges (or staff to operate them). We waited another 30 minutes. Everyone wanted to get off the plane, and the passengers were getting angrier by the second.  As time went on, passengers began to assume they wouldn’t have to wait for their luggage since it was taking so long to deplane. I guess they thought the passengers on the other planes didn’t have any luggage? Since 10 flights landed at the same time, all the luggage needed to be unloaded at the same time. We waited again. Don’t misunderstand me, I wasn’t jumping for joy about the string of annoyances, but I recognized that yelling and screaming at customer service or other passengers was not going to accomplish anything. We waited 40 minutes for our luggage, then. went out to the rental car shuttle.

At this point, it was after 10:00 p.m. I was expecting to be at my destination by 8:00 p.m. Every rental car shuttle was arriving except for the one where I had a reservation.  I stood with about 60 other people – and the crowd was growing. Honest to heaven, we waited so long (nearly an hour) and the crowd was getting so large that someone from the airport came out to ask which shuttle we needed. I don’t need to tell you, frustration was mounting. Many of these people had experienced delayed flights, long waits on the tarmac, an extreme wait for luggage, change in time zones, it was late in the evening and now there was no shuttle.  It’s no surprise that the mood was not great.

Finally, in the distance, we could see the shuttle! And…it was not a large bus it was a small van – “Oh no, this mob of people is never going to fit in that van! It’s going to be survival of the fittest,” I thought. I decide I would wait for the next van, I was not going to get in the middle of that chaos – I didn’t care how tired I was. The van stopped, all but in front of me. I was still planning to wait it out when a gentleman motioned me to go ahead and get on – what a kind man. As I stepped up, the driver took my luggage and the person in front of me. He set two bags directly in my path so I had to stop. That’s when I felt something hit me HARD in my calf, my leg buckled and I nearly fell over – thank heaven for all the luggage that was around me to hold me up. I turned around to see a large hardcover suitcase (apparently filled with rocks) had been hurled at me by a 6’2”, 250-pound man behind me. Apparently, he didn’t want to carry it up the steps.  I don’t know, but in any event, it hurt like hell. I could feel my leg swelling immediately and I truly wanted to strangle him. He apologized for hitting me and we moved on.

I finally arrived at the rental car location, hobbled in with my sore leg, and my luggage in tow and proceeded to get my car. I was to drop the car off at 4 a.m. two days later so I could make my early flight home. The clerk informed me that the shuttle doesn’t start running until 4:30 a.m. but there is a drop box for the car keys. I inquired as to how I might get to the airport at 4:00 a.m. His response, “I guess you’ll have to walk.” Did he really just say that? Customer service was lacking at this location. I wanted to inflict the physical pain I was feeling on him. Instead, I replied, “I’ll figure it out. Thanks for your help.” I went outside where I got my rental car and instead of giving me the printed receipt, he e-mailed it. Finally, I could head to the hotel and get a few hours’ sleep. I pulled up to the gate handed the gentleman inside my driver’s license – he asked for my receipt. I explained that it was e-mailed, and I didn’t receive a printed copy, he then replies – “I guess you’ll have to go back and get one.” (I couldn’t pull it up on e-mail because it was sent to my assistant.) Was this day ever going to end? I was exhausted, my leg was killing me, and everyone was being less than tolerable. “I don’t think so,” I replied. “I am NOT going anywhere. You can pick up the phone and call him if you like but I am not turning around.” So, he called his manager. Another wait.

I got to my hotel around 1:00 a.m., starving and drained both emotionally and physically.  I examined my leg, it was swollen, horribly bruised and the top layer of skin was ripped off (the next day I was speaking for several hours, wearing 3-inch heels).  Nothing a bag of M&M wouldn’t fix.

The trip home was another adventure. I’ll save it for another time. My point is, at many points during this excursion, I certainly could have gone the route of many others and yelled, screamed, and cussed at the less-than-helpful customer service agents. I am a top-level frequent flier, I’m a top level rental car customer, and the same goes at multiple hotel chains, but what does that matter and what does it solve. When an individual does that, the corporation doesn’t look bad. The person yelling and swearing does. They look like fools. Was it the customer service agent’s fault our flight was delayed? Was it the airline attendant’s fault that there was not a bridge available the moment we landed? Was it their fault we had to wait for our luggage? No, is the answer to every one of these questions. Yet it is these customer service representatives who were being yelled at and belittled in front of crowds of people.  Getting angry and abusive doesn’t solve any of the annoying travel problems – it only causes more anger and hatred.

To those who think that business travelers live a life of glitter and glitz…we do get to visit more destinations than the average person and we do (usually) have a good time in our travels, but it’s not always what you envision. To those who travel as I do, if you’ve never worked in the service industry, be patient with these folks – they’re people too. They are out there trying to earn a living just like you and me. Put yourself in their shoes.  Is any of this going to matter six months from now? Probably not. Take a deep breath, it will all be over soon – and it could be worse, at least you’re alive to complain about it.

To the gentleman that hit me with his massive suitcase, I hope you arrived home safely and got a good night’s sleep. I recommend getting your blood pressure checked, and maybe you should try meditation (or medication.  Or both).

I think I should write a book based on my last 10 years of travel experiences, there have been some doozies.

Francine L. Shaw is President of Food Safety Training Solutions, Inc., which offers a robust roster of services, including consulting, food safety training, food safety inspections, norovirus policies for employees, norovirus clean-up procedures, curriculum development, responsible alcohol service training, and more. The Food Safety Training Solutions team has more than 100 combined years of industry experience in restaurants, casinos, and convenience stores. The company has helped numerous clients, including Paradies Lagardère, McDonald’s, Subway, Marriott, Domino’s, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America, Dairy Queen, and Omni Hotel and Resorts, prevent foodborne illnesses. Additionally, they work with restaurants of all sizes, schools, medical facilities, convenience stores, hotels, and casinos.  Francine has been featured as a food safety expert in numerous media outlets, including the Dr. Oz Show, the Huffington Post, iHeartRadio, Food Safety News, and Food Management Magazine.

Tips to Prevent Norovirus: The Leading Cause of Foodborne Illness

By Francine L. Shaw  |  Published May 2016

Norovirus is the leading cause of foodborne illnesses and it spreads rapidly. Anyone can get infected with Norovirus and it’s possible to get it more than once. The average person will get Norovirus approximately five times during their lifetime. Peak season for Norovirus is during cooler months: November to April.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that each year, Norovirus causes:

• 19 - 21 million illnesses

• 56,000 - 71,000 hospitalizations

• 570 - 800 deaths

When Norovirus enters food service establishments, the results can be serious and widespread. In December 2015, a Boston-area Chipotle had a Norovirus outbreak that sickened over a hundred customers. Then, in March, Chipotle shuttered a different Massachusetts restaurant amid Norovirus concerns.   

When Chipotle learned that four employees at this location were ill, they decided to close the store for a full sanitation. At the time, it wasn’t known for certain if the employees had Norovirus, so this closure and full sanitation was done as a precaution. This closure cost them a day’s sales, the cost of the sanitation, and more negative press (that they didn’t deserve). Erring on the side of caution was wise, as at least one employee was ultimately confirmed to have the virus. As a result of Chipotle’s actions, no customers were infected. They prevented an outbreak.

Chipotle has received considerable bad press since for months, as the quick service chain suffered one foodborne illness outbreak after another, including Salmonella, E. coli, and Norovirus. These events hit multiple locations, sickened hundreds, caused Chipotle’s stocks to plummet, sparked lawsuits, and even resulted in a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.

When they suspected Norovirus in early March, they did exactly what they should’ve done – closed and sanitized this restaurant. Unfortunately, their actions to prevent yet another foodborne illness outbreak were not reported in the most positive light.

Norovirus is extremely common. When employees come to work with diarrhea and vomiting, most facilities don’t close for sanitation. In fact, these employees are often permitted to work with these very contagious symptoms that can infect others – and even cause a foodborne illness outbreak.

Norovirus can easily contaminate food because it’s very tiny and infective. It only takes a very small amount of virus particles (as few as 18) to make someone sick. Food can get contaminated with Norovirus when:

• Infected people who have feces or vomit on their hands touch the food.

• Food is placed on counters or surfaces that have infectious feces or vomit on them.

• Tiny drops of vomit from an infected person spray through the air and land on the food.

Foods can also be contaminated at their source:

• Oysters that are harvested from contaminated water

• Fruit and vegetables that are contaminated during the growing process

At Food Safety Training Solutions, Inc., we offer food service professionals these tips to avoid Norovirus-related issues:

• Do not work or allow your employees to work when ill.

• Avoid preparing food for others while you’re sick and for at least 48 hours after symptoms 

  stop. Get a note from your physician before returning to work.

• Wash your hands carefully and often with soap and water (at least 100°F). The hand 

  washing process should take at least 20 seconds.

• Rinse fruits and vegetables carefully.

• Cook shellfish thoroughly.

• Clean and sanitize kitchen utensils, counters, and surfaces routinely.

• Wash table linens, napkins, and other laundry thoroughly and often.

• Have (and implement) a policy for “Clean-up and Disinfection of Norovirus” as stated in the 

  2013 Food Code.

Let’s give credit where credit is due. Kudos to Chipotle for doing the right thing, regardless of what it cost the business. On the day they closed one location to prevent yet another a foodborne illness outbreak, their stocks dropped again, and the media headlines were negative. Chipotle is going to continue to be under the microscope for a long time. They’ve made many mistakes over the past months, but they appear to be making positive changes in their foodborne illness protocols, and that should be applauded.