Tag Archives: Food Safety

by | November 11, 2014 · 9:00 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “60 People Fall Ill With Norovirus at Bay Area Luxury Hotel” (VIDEO)

After the outbreak, staff members with the county’s Communicable Disease and Environmental Health Service began working with hotel managementNorovirus to implement infectious disease containment measures. The measures include frequent and comprehensive cleaning of common areas, educating employees about the virus and posting additional signage reminding employees to wash their hands.

Public health officials say 60 people who fell ill after staying at a Bay Area luxury hotel two weeks ago contracted the norovirus — a highly contagious virus that can lead to stomach pain, nausea and diarrhea.

San Mateo County health officials confirmed Friday that the guests and employees of the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City became ill sometime after Oct. 28, and traced the illness to the highly contagious norovirus, which spreads after contact with an infected person or contaminated food and water.

For more: http://lat.ms/1uYVKCD

And for more on how to help prevent Norovirus at your property, check out the video below from Petra’s own P3 Risk Management Team.

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/98741016 w=500&h=281]

Petra Risk Solutions’ Loss Control Manager, Matt Karp, offers a P3 Hospitality Risk Report – ‘Preventing Norovirus at Your Property’. 

P3 (Petra Plus Process) is the Risk Management Division of Petra Risk Solutions – America ’s largest independent insurance brokerage devoted exclusively to the hospitality marketplace.

For more information on Petra and P3 visit petrarisksolutions.com or call 800.466.8951.

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by | November 4, 2014 · 8:47 am

Hospitality Industry Health Update: “Maintaining a Healthy Workforce, Workplace Keys to Hotels’ Ebola Response”

So far, it appears that the Ebola outbreak is not holding back companies’ road warriors. According to a poll of corporate travel managers released by the Global Business Travel Association Foundation,Ebola-620x330 nearly 80 percent of the managers said international business travel has either not been impacted at all or has not been impacted much during the past month. Likewise, more than 90 percent of managers said that domestic business travel has either not been impacted at all or has not been impacted much during the past month.

Travelers aren’t immune to the fear of Ebola generated by top headlines, so even though the dangers of a serious outbreak in the United States remain extraordinarily low, hotels must be prepared to respond to guests’ and employees’ concerns. And with flu season upon us, they should be ready to take responsible action no matter what the serious health care scenario.

“The health, safety, and security of our guests and team members is paramount,” stated Katherine Lugar, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AH&LA) in a press release. “In these kinds of rapidly evolving situations, it is imperative that we stay informed, dispel fact from fiction, and follow official guidelines.”

For more: http://bit.ly/1x3lCeB

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by | September 19, 2014 · 8:34 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “Legionnaires’ Disease: Awareness and Prevention” (Video)

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/105983681 w=500&h=281]

Petra Risk Solutions’ Loss Control Manager, Marco Johnson, offers a P3 Hospitality Risk Report – ‘Legionnaires’ Disease: Awareness and Prevention’. 

P3 (Petra Plus Process) is the Risk Management Division of Petra Risk Solutions – America ’s largest independent insurance brokerage devoted exclusively to the hospitality marketplace.

For more information on Petra and P3 visit petrarisksolutions.com or call 800.466.8951.

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by | September 12, 2014 · 9:27 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “Legionnaires’ Disease: Awareness and Prevention” (Video)

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/105983681 w=500&h=281]

Petra Risk Solutions’ Loss Control Manager, Marco Johnson, offers a P3 Hospitality Risk Report – ‘Legionnaires’ Disease: Awareness and Prevention’. 

P3 (Petra Plus Process) is the Risk Management Division of Petra Risk Solutions – America ’s largest independent insurance brokerage devoted exclusively to the hospitality marketplace.

For more information on Petra and P3 visit petrarisksolutions.com or call 800.466.8951.

 

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by | June 20, 2014 · 9:30 am

Hospitality Industry Health Update: “Food and Water Quality an Ongoing Challenge for Hotels”

“…While a wide variation of food and water quality practices exists from country to country,water it’s a misconception that safety concerns are limited to poor areas in developing regions. Many germs have no boundaries, so the NSF StaySafer program will play an important role in establishing a universal set of standards that can be used as a benchmark and complement local requirements…”

From the buffet salad bar greens to the ice clinking in drinks served poolside, hotel administrators are finding that protecting guests from food and water illness outbreaks is a continuous challenge.

It’s also a necessary undertaking to demonstrate the hotel’s commitment to its patrons’ well being. Travelers won’t soon forget the awful stomach cramps if they experience a sickness during their stay, and such episodes can cause nearly irreversible damages to a hotel’s reputation.

For more: http://bit.ly/1kVhmFd

For a brief video on some of the steps you can take to help prevent Norovirus outbreak at your hotel, check out the video below:

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/98741016 w=500&h=281]

Petra Risk Solutions’ Loss Control Manager, Matt Karp, offers a P3 Hospitality Risk Report – ‘Preventing Norovirus at Your Property’. 

P3 ( Petra Plus Process) is the Risk Management Division of Petra Risk Solutions – America ’s largest independent insurance brokerage devoted exclusively to the hospitality marketplace.

For more information on Petra and P3 visit petrarisksolutions.com or call 800.466.8951.

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by | January 17, 2014 · 8:34 am

Hospitality Industry Food Safety Update: “Under New Food Safety Law, Bartenders Have to Wear Gloves”

“…In an effort to educate restaurant operators and health inspectors, the law will undergo a “soft roll-out” during the next six months to a year,Image according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. No points will be deducted when food handlers are not wearing gloves, but restaurant operators will receive a warning instead…”

Chefs aren’t the only ones affected by a new food safety law that bans culinary workers from touching certain foods with their bare hands. Like chefs, bartenders have to wear gloves or use other utensils to make their drinks. No touching ice, fruit garnishes or anything else that goes directly into your glass.

Changes to the California Retail Food Code that went into effect at the beginning of 2014 require disposable gloves or utensils such as tongs, paper or scoops to be used when handling “ready-to-eat” foods, which include sushi, bread, deli meats and fresh fruit and vegetables. Basically, nothing that won’t be cooked or reheated before it goes out to diners can be touched with bare hands.

For more: http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-under-new-food-safety-law-bartenders-have-to-wear-gloves-20140114,0,7520647.story#axzz2qTxmrCcS

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by | December 4, 2013 · 7:26 am

Hospitality Industry Health Risks: Restaurant Study By CDC Finds “Widespread Risky Food Handling Practices” In Over 50% Of Kitchens; Failure To Follow FDA Guidance On Preventing Cross-Contamination

“…For the chicken study, EHS-Net researchers interviewed 448 restaurant managers. They found that many were not following FDA guidance Restaurant Kitchen Health Risksabout preventing cross-contamination and cooking chicken properly and that managers “lacked basic food safety knowledge about chicken”…40% of managers said they never, rarely, or only occasionally designated certain cutting boards exclusively for raw meat, and more than 50% said that thermometers were not used to determine the final cooking temperature of chicken. Further, only 43% of managers knew the recommended final cooking temperature…”

A set of studies released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its partners points to widespread holes in restaurant food safety systems, such as risky handling of ground beef and chicken and too-warm shipping temperatures for leafy greens.

Among the key findings, according to the study and a CDC summary:

  • Eighty-one percent of restaurants used subjective measures of hamburger doneness, and 49% said they never checked the final cooking temperature
  • At least two risky handling practices were seen in 53% of restaurants
  • In 62% of restaurants in which workers used bare hands to handle raw ground beef, they did not wash their hands after handling it.
  • Only 1% of restaurants reported buying irradiated ground beef, and 29% were unfamiliar with the product
  • Chain restaurants and those with managers certified in food safety had safer practices than others.

At the same time, the CDC announced plans for a new surveillance system designed to help state and local health departments identify underlying factors that contribute to foodborne disease outbreaks in restaurants and other food service venues.

The research findings, published this week in the Journal of Food Protection, deal with the handling of ground beef, chicken, and leafy greens and with sick food workers.

For more:  http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2013/12/cdc-finds-holes-restaurant-food-safety-systems

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2013/p1202-food-safety-tools.html

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by | October 24, 2013 · 8:19 am

Hospitality Industry Safety Risks: New “Smartphone App” Searches Twitter To Identify “Possible Cases Of Restaurant Food Poisoning”; Results Correlated With “Scores From Health Department”

“…The app tags related users and follows that user around for 72 hours and analyzes their tweets for signs of food poisoning symptoms like Restaurant Food Poisoning Appsvomiting, abdominal pain, fever and chills. The system watches out for tweets that contain keywords like “threw up” and “tummy ache.”…In just four months, the nEmesis team was able to identify around 23,000 restaurant customers and detect around 480 possible cases of food poisoning. They then gave the restaurants a “health score” based on the number of incidents of people who became sick after eating there. The nEmesis team correlated their results with scores from the health department…”

Researchers at the University of Rochester developed an app called nEmesis that searches through Twitter and identifies possible cases of food poisoning. The app takes GPS data that is accessible via Twitter’s API and cross references that with the coordinates of restaurants.

One of the creators, Adam Sadilek, who now works at Google, sees the app as something that can help warn customers and as a potential tool for health officials to identify restaurants that may need to be looked into.

For more:  http://www.psfk.com/2013/10/food-poisoning-detection-app.html

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by | October 23, 2013 · 9:13 am

P3 Hospitality Industry Risk Report: “Food Poisoning Claims” By Todd Seiders, Director Of Risk Management For Petra Risk Solutions (Video)

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/52038337 w=500&h=281]

http://www.petrarisksolutions.com/

http://www.petrarisksolutions.com/

Petra Risk Solutions’ Director of Risk Management, Todd Seiders, offers a P3 Hospitality Risk Report – ‘Food Poisoning Claims’.

P3 ( Petra Plus Process) is the Risk Management Division of Petra Risk Solutions – America ’s largest independent insurance brokerage devoted exclusively to the hospitality marketplace.

For more information on Petra and P3 visit petrarisksolutions.com or call 800.466.8951.

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by | September 30, 2013 · 6:21 am

Hospitality Industry Health Risks: Restaurants Must Make Food Safety A “Core Value”; Lack Of “Hand Washing, Food Holding Temperature Controls” Remain Biggest Risk To Customers

“…Hand washing and proper holding temperatures — the basics of food safety — have not changed in 30 years, said Moore of Eat’n Restaurant Kitchen Health RisksPark. The key is keeping the message fresh so that employees pay attention…with a workforce largely under the age of 25, employers need to make sure their messages are quick and easy to grasp. Moore said he relies on lots of colorful visuals, and customized posters, comics, video clips featuring celebrities, games like Pandemic 2, and stuffed-animal germs and microbes are among his favorites…”

Food safety “needs to be part of your core values,” William Moore, director of safety and security for Eat’n Park Hospitality Inc., the Homestead, Pa.-based parent of the 75-unit Eat’n Park family-dining chain, said during his keynote speech. “If it’s not in your core values, your mission statement, then it’s not a priority.”

The symposium occurred against the backdrop of a Cyclospora outbreak that had sickened 642 people in 25 states, leading to 45 hospitalizations but no deaths, throughout the summer. The cause of the outbreak was still under investigation at press time, although a salad mix from Taylor Farms de Mexico served at Darden Restaurants Inc. in two states had been implicated in about 240 of the illnesses.

Tugging at the heartstrings doesn’t hurt either, said several attendees. Al Baroudi, Ph.D., vice president, quality assurance and food safety for The Cheesecake Factory Inc., the Calabasas Hills, Calif.-based operator of 175 upscale casual-dining restaurants, shows his audiences an image of the hundreds of children and adults that have died during foodborne illness outbreaks to drive home the point that lives are stake.

For more:  http://nrn.com/food-safety/7-steps-ensuring-restaurant-food-safety?page=2

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