The Tremendous Cost of Foodborne Illnesses, and What to Do About it

The cost of a single foodborne illness outbreak at a fast-casual establishment could cost between $6,330 to $2.1 million.

By Francine L. Shaw  |  Published June 2018

Each year, 48 million Americans become sick from foodborne illness.

America’s food industry has a $55.5 billion food safety problem. This includes foodborne illnesses at restaurants, hotels, convenience stores, and other food service organizations, as well as food recalls and other food safety issues.

Clearly, restaurants should be concerned about sickening—or even killing—customers because of a foodborne illness and should take every precaution to reduce that risk. But foodborne illnesses are also expensive and damaging for businesses.

A foodborne illness incident can cost restaurants significant money—including decreased revenues, hefty legal fees, potential lawsuits, diminished sales (and loyalty) from worried guests, and a damaged reputation that could permanently shut their doors. In fact, foodborne illnesses cost $55.5 billion per year in medical treatment, lost productivity, and illness-related mortality in the U.S, according to a study by Ohio State University professor Robert Scharff.

The cost of a single foodborne illness outbreak at a fast-casual establishment could cost between $6,330 to $2.1 million, depending on the severity of the outbreak, the amount of lawsuits, fines and legal fees, as well as the number of employees and guests impacted by the incident, according to a new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Casual-dining restaurants had a cost range of $8,030 to $2.2 million, and fine-dining restaurants could experience costs between $8,273 and $2.6 million per incident, according to the study.

"Our study shows that a single foodborne illness outbreak can incur substantial costs, enough to compose a large portion of a restaurant's annual profits," the team wrote in the study. "Many of these costs outweigh the costs of various infection prevention and control measures that are available to restaurants."

Each year, 48 million Americans become sick from foodborne illness, per the Centers for Disease Control. Reducing foodborne illness by just 1 percent would keep approximately 500,000 people from getting sick each year in the US. Reducing foodborne illness by 10 percent would prevent five million from getting sick.

Investing in food safety is one of the smartest things that restaurants (and other food service organizations) can do. The expense, time and energy necessary to implement—or elevate—your food safety protocols won’t be overwhelming, and it’s crucial to your business success.

Reduce safety risks—and the tremendous costs associated with foodborne illness incidents and outbreaks—by taking the following steps:

Make food safety part of your company’s culture. Everyone—on every shift—must be trained in proper food safety protocols.

Invest in the latest technologies. Digital tools are elevating the way many restaurants do business. Not only do these technological tools make food safer, but they can also save restaurants tremendous money each year by preventing food waste and reducing foodborne illness risks.

Ditch the paper. Technological solutions enhance food safety protocols and make it faster, more accurate, and more efficient to conduct inventory, auditing, training and keep food safe. Restaurants that adopt and embrace digital tools (versus using pen and paper systems) can help boost the health and safety of their establishments.

Reduce human error. While human error can never be completely eliminated, advancements in technology help minimize the risks. Sensors ensure foods are being held at proper temperatures. Centralized, continuous refrigeration monitoring systems signal when temperatures in restaurants’ coolers or freezers rise above safe holding temperatures, eliminating the need to throw away entire coolers or freezers of food due to improperly working units. As a result, restaurants can save thousands of dollars (or more) in lost product and potentially save lives.

Elevate your data collection. Innovative digital tools can now be used for restaurants’ internal auditing systems, which is a more efficient, cost-effective and accurate solution versus the pen and paper methods that are often used in the foodservice industry. Using pen and paper to audit restaurants often result in increased labor, time, errors and expenses. Hard copy records can be difficult to organize and access—especially in the midst of a frightening food safety outbreak—and it’s extremely difficult to integrate and analyze the data. Digital tools provide more efficient, cost-effective internal auditing systems, with records that are easy to access and analyze.

Become mobile. A major percentage of restaurant employees are millennials (or younger), and they live on their phones. If you’re trying to emphasize the importance of food safety protocols but then provide employees with antiquated pencil and paper record-keeping systems, there’s a tremendous disconnect. Instead, implement digital systems that can be tracked on cell phones and tablets. Use downloadable apps to enhance the way employees conduct inspections, keep temperature logs, conduct training, manage QA forms, access food code information, and more. This way, critical food safety information can be (literally) at employees’ fingertips.

Improve operational efficiencies. By doing so, you’ll improve your restaurant’s bottom line. Eliminating pen and paper line checks can save $250-600 per year per restaurant, smart sensors that prevent food spoilage can save $1,100 per episode, and reducing food and labor costs can save $4,700 per year per restaurant, according to a recent CoInspect survey. Digital tools can help with brand protection and quality assurance concerns by optimizing and improving line checks, shift logs, inspections, auditing, and other reporting.

Reduce pencil whipping. There’s a widespread “pencil whipping” problem in the foodservice industry, where employees using paper record systems falsify records or “cheat” on their processes. As much as food service leadership wants to deny that “pencil whipping” happens in their organizations, it’s (unfortunately) a fairly common practice in restaurants, hotels, convenience stores, and other industry businesses. Pencil whipping can result in increased food safety risks, food code violations, and other (potentially costly) issues. Digital tools help reduce or eliminate “pencil whipping” through real-time data collection, and visual records using photos and videos.

While technology has previously been considered to be a luxury, today, digital tools are affordable, widespread and accessible. Technology that can help minimize labor, reduce (or eliminate) foodborne illness risks, and minimize food waste is not an expense, it’s an important investment. Innovative digital systems and records are fundamental to keeping foods, consumers, and restaurants healthy and safe.

Restaurants must prioritize food safety, utilizing the most efficient and effective tools to protect the health of their guests, employees, and businesses. Technology streamlines operations improve safety protocols, reduce errors, integrates data—and so much more, and the benefits are significant. When restaurant owners tell me, “I can’t afford the investment,” my response is always, “You can’t afford not to.”

A Day in the Life of an Inspector: Is that a dead goat?

By Francine L. Shaw

I’ve been in the food service industry all of my life. As a child, I remember spending the warm summer days sitting on the front porch of my Grandma’s country store – a convenience store of yesteryear – in Harrisonville, PA.

When I was a few years older, my parents owned a small grocery store in a nearby town. I can recall wiping the shelving as I helped restock product. As a teenager, I began my first “real job” as fry girl in a fast food restaurant, which eventually led to me becoming an operating partner.

These jobs – along with some common sense and ongoing education – taught me the ins and outs of the industry. While I was in my own environment, running my own restaurant, I thought the rest of the world operated as I did, meaning – they followed the rules. Upon moving on to the next phase of my career I found out that, sadly, that’s not true….

I eventually became a health inspector, which meant I had access to hundreds of restaurant kitchens. My assumption that everyone operated as I did came to an abrupt end one day as I entered a restaurant kitchen just after they had finished slaughtering a goat – yes a goat. In a restaurant kitchen.

At first, I wasn’t certain what type of creature it was because when I opened the freezer door, all I saw were several small hooved legs strewn about the freezer floor. I immediately shut the door and opened it again, as if I was seeing a mirage. Out of the corner of my eye, I observed a box lined with a trash bag, with another hoof sticking out of the bag. So very carefully I opened the bag and found the remains of several goats. And that was a horrific sight that I couldn’t un-see.

Another time, I was inspecting one of my favorite full-service restaurants. With its marble floors, white linens, and great food, I’d been a longtime fan of this establishment. I was actually looking forward to visiting their kitchen because I loved the place and truly enjoyed their food.

But when I visited, I witnessed a disgusting scene. There were too many violations to list. There were numerous temperature violations and mystery meat in five-gallon chemical buckets (!!!) in the walk-in cooler. The cooks were picking crab meat off the leftovers from the guests’ plates to make crab imperial and cream of crab soup – two of my favorite dishes – to serve to other diners! The chilled forks were being cooled directly on three inches of contaminated ice build-up in a dilapidated old freezer.

As I stood, engaged in a heated discussion with the owner about these infractions, a cockroach wandered across the stainless-steel countertop between us. The owner simply smashed it with his hand and knocked it onto the floor. Oddly enough, the owner of this establishment didn’t think that his facility had serious safety violation issues. Not only did I write up these many violations, I haven’t eaten there since. The violations were appalling, and the foodborne illness risks at the facility were monumental.

While inspecting a different full-service restaurant, I was standing in the kitchen when I observed a chef take off a pair of single-use gloves only to expose another pair underneath – a definite food safety violation! When I questioned him, he explained that the sink was “too far away to keep running over there to wash my hands”. I was stunned. As it turned out, he was wearing five pairs of single use gloves simultaneously. On another visit to this establishment, I witnessed another chef washing his hands while wearing single-use gloves, rather than removing them, washing his hands and putting on a clean pair. The potential cross-contamination and cross-contact issues that both of these situations created were numerous. I am certain this “method” wasn’t taught in culinary school. Their instructors would be mortified.

On several occasions, I was called in to conduct inspections because people had seen cockroaches in restaurants. Cockroaches like warm, moist, dark environments. The first place I look is in a piece of refrigeration equipment. I’ll remove a panel and look at the fins that cover the coils….BAM! As soon as light hits the filthy little insects, they scatter and I know there’s an infestation. Not my favorite part of the day. I once was involved in a consulting project for a company that had been closed by the health department due to a cockroach infestation. We had to do some heavy fumigating. The infestation was so bad that as the cockroaches started to die, they were coming out of the drop ceiling and landing on our heads. Thank heavens for hoodies! I’d put that experience in the top five worst days I’ve had on the job (along with the day I saw the slaughtered goat!).

Insurance companies will sometimes hire us to conduct food safety inspections on their restaurant clients. During one of these inspections, I found several pallets of refrigerated product sitting right outside of a walk-in cooler – not 3 feet away from the cooler door. The product was well over the recommended temperature (41⁰F) for cold food.

It was the end of summer, incredibly hot and all of the warehouse doors were open, which let in more heat and humidity. When I questioned the supervisor on duty about the food that was being spoiled in the hot warehouse, he explained to me that it was lunchtime and all of the workers had left, but they would put the food away as soon as they returned from their break. It would have taken seconds to pull this pallet of food in the cooler with a forklift! I couldn’t understand why they’d drop the food so close to the cooler, without taking the (very minimal) extra effort to put it inside.

During another inspection, I found a tuna sandwich in a retail display case that was 80⁰F. When I explained to a person on duty that this was not acceptable – the tuna would quickly spoil at that temperature – and what the potential ramifications could be, the response I received was, “Well it’s only one sandwich!” I told her that one sandwich could potentially make someone sick or kill them if they ate it. So, it’s OK if you only kill one person today?

I could continue with numerous other examples, but the point I want to make is this: if you are in any way responsible for someone else’s food, you are responsible for their life and that should be taken seriously. One life (and one rotten tuna sandwich) or thousands of lives (as they eat food from pallets that have been sitting out for hours in a steaming hot warehouse) is irrelevant…ask anyone who’s lost a loved one due to a foodborne illness. And, it doesn’t matter if you’re working in a convenience store or a fine dining restaurant – you have human lives in your hands. Be responsible and follow proper food safety protocol.

Cutting Corners Doesn't Cut Costs.

As someone that is personally out and about in the food service industry, I have opportunity to see things that I really wish I didn't. I spent over twenty years in "operations." I have personally cooked food, waited on customers, cleaned drains (with toothbrushes), scrubbed toilets, and even wiped fecal matter off the walls (Yes - for some reason, certain customers feel compelled to do this...).

When I was a manager and eventually an Operating Partner, I wanted to operate my establishment in a manner that I could be certain the food was safe. This meant keeping the employees trained and the facility clean. I am astounded when I go out to conduct food safety inspections! I'm not speaking of working dirt. I can look beyond that issue. I am referring to total disregard for public health. I was so naïve in my early years I thought everyone had the same standards I did... silly me!

When money is tight and owners/managers start to make cuts, typically the first items cut are training and cleaning supplies. This makes no sense to me. It's a fact that well-trained staff contribute more profit to your bottom line. It's also a fact the customers don't like to visit dirty restaurants. Again a loss of clientele is going to take away from your bottom line. So, how do we change this thought process? How do we change the mentality of what they don't know won't hurt them (when in fact it can kill you)?  How do we make those who don't seem to care, care? I don't pretend to have the answers to all of these questions; nor, do I intend to throw everyone into this preverbal boat. But, I do know that we have many issues that need to be corrected as a whole and it starts at the top - with attitude.

Mold around edge of freezer 

Unidentifiable meat product, improper storage, filthy floor 

Uncovered product, cardboard in box, contaminated 

Unidentified meat product

Grapes

Stove

            

The Role Of The Health Inspector

My company has recently been charged with conducting some health inspections in a specific area.  Most of my visits have been pretty uneventful; however, a few have been more than noteworthy.  having spent over 20 years in the industry myself, I know first hand how challenging any given day can be.  It has also enabled me to distinguish between "working dirt" and "filth"; as well as, the difference between the truth vs. lies and excuses. 

As I go through each day, my goal is not to close restaurants or find violations.  My goal is simply to protect the public from illness or God forbid...death.  We have encountered many folks who are trying to "do the right thing"; and, several who have bent, twisted, and broken every rule in the book.
My question is, as operators, why do some think the rules apply to everyone BUT them?  I don't care if they are corporations or small "Mom & Pop" type establishments...the guidelines are the same for everyone - no one is "out to get you".

Bottom line is, if your establishment is clean and your following the rules...there is absolutely NOTHING to worry about with any inspection.