Facing the Culture Trap Handwashing behaviors are primarily driven by a firm’s assessment of risk. The Operations department starts near the top of this pyramid, looking first to change the behaviors of prep and waitstaff via Quality Assurance and Training. Ownership and their C-Suite representatives are disengaged as there are no handwashing compliance reports to […]
Risk-Based Handwashing
Process Control Answers the Rising Risk Years of poor handwashing has resulted in it becoming the default standard in foodservice across the country. The management complacency that followed blocks out the visibility of the rising risks. Converting handwashing from a random act to one of a process with standards, controls and behavior-changing reporting answers the […]
Handwashing: Culinary vs. Nursing
Winners have the data Handwashing in nursing home and hospital kitchens is often better in terms of compliance than that in Nursing areas. Surprised? Not surprised? How do we know? Data. It is not all good news for Culinary in that Nursing regularly reports a 90% handwashing compliance rate based on their admittedly flawed secret […]
Surface Cleaning Advances at ISSA 2016
Options grow for TouchReady® Surfaces The annual ISSA meeting continues to demonstrate its leadership in surface cleanliness advances. Some high-tech options this year were in the Generate-On-Site category, including the stabilized ozone from Tersano. Variations of electrolyzed water were represented. Tenant has harnessed the chemistry for floor machines and Geneon has optimized its engineered water […]
Ready for Norovirus
’Tis the season to be . . . washing your hands! Great Britain uses a colorful name to describe norovirus as it went technically unclassified for years but its effects were well known, particularly in nursing homes. The “winter vomiting disease” takes its toll every year in a pattern now confirmed in this CDC slide. Norovirus […]
Defeating Norovirus
Conquering this Enemy is Increasingly a Matter of Choice The more we learn about norovirus, the clearer the choices are in changing current behaviors. Foodservice operators know a lot about norovirus, especially in how to cope with an outbreak. What they are ignoring are the impacts of breakthroughs in the science of norovirus, DNA identification […]
Conventional Handwashing. Unconventional Penalties
Data Challenges the Status Quo Years of unchecked failures in handwashing compliance have quietly morphed into an unwritten operational culture within many foodservice organizations. The truth is now exposed as risks rise and the costs of electronic monitoring fall. Operators are checking their assumptions by installing the new electronic hand hygiene monitoring technologies. Data documents […]
Mitigate Risk: Motivate Hand-Washing
Hand-washing continues to rapidly move from a tiring and trivial irritation to an existential threat. One restaurant operator faced a federal grand jury subpoena last year as part of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration criminal investigation regarding a major norovirus outbreak at the chain’s Simi Valley, Calif., store. The operator was accused of not […]
Anti-Bacterial Hand Soaps in Foodservice
Implications of new anti anti-bac FDA ruling To use or not to use anti-bac soaps is a very minor decision in foodservice compared to motivating staff to wash more often. The new FDA ruling is targeted, for now, on consumer products but will likely raise the topic in restaurants and by their local inspectors. http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm517478.htm […]
The Outbreak Breakthrough of Whole Genome Sequencing
Whole genome sequencing, WGS, is a new motivator for enhanced high-touch surface cleaning and handwashing in all locations where people are preparing or serving food. More broadly, it is a robust laboratory procedure for the DNA fingerprinting of pathogens. This advancement provides the opportunity to stop outbreaks sooner and avoid additional illnesses by the rapid […]
