NRA '99

NANCY BRUMBACK

CHICAGO (FNS) -- The supermarket and restaurant industries may fight over share of the consumer's food dollar, but they come together on the issue of food safety.

This truth was evidenced by a new strategic alliance between the Institute of Food Technologists and the National Restaurant Association, and a seminar on food safety at last week's NRA trade show here that included panelists from H.E. Butt Grocery Co., San Antonio, and the Food Marketing Institute, Washington.

The supermarket- and restaurant-industry executives on the panel supported the Food and Drug Administration's 1999 Model Food Code, particularly as a means to develop some regulatory uniformity on the state and local levels, but urged more flexibility on the time and temperature combinations permitted under the code.

Fred Reimers, manager of food safety for H-E-B, urged the FDA to take into account scientific evidence about temperature viability of food-borne pathogens. The current code, he said, is "highly restrictive, costly and not user-friendly," particularly in its process for obtaining variances.

He argued scientific evidence indicates food can be held safely at 130 degrees instead of the FDA-mandated 140 degrees and that food quality is better at the lower temperature.

On the cold side, he noted the Listeria monocytogenes pathogen can survive at temperatures close to freezing and questioned whether lowering refrigerated case temperatures from 45 to 41 degrees, as the FDA recommends retailers do within five years, produces sufficient benefits in risk reduction to justify the additional cost.

Timothy Weigner, manager of the FMI's food-safety program, cited a California utility firm study that showed that case temperature reduction would require a 31.2% increase in compressor power consumption.

Weigner also argued that the pathogens of most concern are all destroyed at temperatures below 130 degrees and that the hot holding temperature requirement should be lowered.

Reimers questioned the need for date-marking commercially processed meats with a long shelf life as adding "unjustified labor costs to the retail side."

He added that H-E-B has no problems with the four- to seven-day date marking on foods prepared at the store level. "At H-E-B, it's fresh on the first day and history on the second day," he said.

The Texas supermarket chain has an extensive system of time and temperature monitors in its cases, with the monitors visible to customers and labeled to reassure shoppers that the chain is concerned about food safety, he said. In-store signs even explain that an aisle may feel chilly but the lower temperatures help maintain food quality.

The equipment allows H-E-B to keep records of any temperature problems. An audible alarm system requires store personnel to respond quickly to any problems. "We know what happened, who took care of it, that there was a [Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point] break and have a record of what happened."

In his remarks, Weigner noted that "the food industry wants flexibility based on turn time" in temperature requirements.

Meat in supermarket cases generally sells in less than two days, he said. "Based on the fact the product is in the store such a short amount of time, we want to be able to play with the temperature," especially if cases have sophisticated time- and temperature-monitoring equipment.

He also suggested a need for monitors that can be passed along to consumers, such as package stickers with dots that change color with temperature variations "to get consumers to think about food-safety controls" once the product is out of the store.

The FMI and the supermarket industry, Weigner added, do support the FDA 1999 code, feeling it is based on sound science, is realistic and legally defensible, and, most importantly, provides a basis for universal recognition of a single control standard.

He pointed out that, while the FDA and the 16 states which have adopted the code require a hot-holding temperature of 140 degrees, other states have set the temperature at 130, "and one state is promoting 155 degrees."

If stores want variances from the FDA guidelines, he said, they "must have the mechanisms in place to demonstrate compliance. They have to keep records and make them available."

David Theno, vice president of quality assurance for Foodmaker Inc., San Diego, parent company of the Jack in the Box fast-food chain, suggested ways to be sure employees are complying with food-safety regulations.

Foodmaker adopted extensive safety procedures after a fatal 1993 E. coli outbreak, and Theno invited food-industry executives to visit the chain and study the procedures.

Food safety, he said, must be a top management priority that cannot be undermined by competitive and profitability pressures. Equipment and monitoring devices must support the safety effort.

"It took us about a year to get all the other company programs aligned with HACCP," he noted. To increase employee awareness of food safety, Theno suggested developing and sharing expected usage patterns, including explaining why it's OK for some products, such as salad dressings, to be unrefrigerated. Educate employees about time and temperature requirements. And lead by example, he said.

Theno provided six suggestions for ways executives can see how effective their food-safety programs are:

1. Ask a shift leader or assistant manager what is most important about food safety.

2. Ask yourself what questions you ask employees. "Do you ask about sales or about food-safety problems?"

3. Ask crew members why a particular time and temperature is important. "If they understand, they will do the right thing."

4. Ask the crew what they do if something is not right.

5. Assess the level of awareness of managers on all shifts, particularly in 24-hour operations.

6. And ask all the same questions of your suppliers.

Dee Clingman, vice president of quality assurance for Darden Restaurants, Orlando, Fla., parent company of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, suggested restaurants and other food operations need to "apply technology to food safety" with new equipment to permit better record-keeping and compliance.

Current HACCP systems, he joked, are Y2K-compliant because they are still at the paper-and-pencil stage.

"Management must be able to monitor vital areas and correct deficiencies immediately," he noted.

Darden is currently rolling out to its restaurants a device to permit fast, simple data collection and immediately identify problems, using simple icons that are easy for employees to learn and understand.