One of the first lines of defense in the fight against foodborne illness is your establishment’s storage facilities. Dry food storage is where shelf-stable foods will be stored until they’re ready to be prepared and served to your customers.
Can a food handler safely serve raw meat? What do they need to know to ensure safe food handling and preparation? Public Health Ontario recently conducted a study on the subject of raw meat dishes, bringing information to light about the consequences of consuming raw meat and the importance of food handler certification.
Customer exposures to Hepatitis A have seen a major increase throughout the first half of the year, with cases appearing in the US in Arkansas, Indiana, and California as well as other states, resulting in a multi-state outbreak of around 1,200 patients which led to the deaths of at least 40 people. Governing bodies are urging all North American food service workers to ensure that they are vaccinated against the easily transmittable Hepatitis A virus - especially in communities near the infected areas or workers who travel often. Here’s what food service workers and restaurant owners need to know about the relationship between Hepatitis A and the food service industry.
A recent three-part investigation held by Global News discovered that many restaurants in Nova Scotia go up to six years without being inspected by a public health official - including those deemed as being high-risk for foodborne illnesses. The food safety inspection gap in Nova Scotia comes as a surprise to many Canadians, as the benefits of food service establishments undergoing regular health inspections are innumerable for both customers and businesses themselves.
Robyn Goorevitch has been one of our food safety trainers for a number of years. In addition to her work with us, Robyn also runs her own food safety classes for various organizations. In July 2016, Robyn received a cancer diagnosis and was told by her oncologist that all she had to do to ensure that her food was safe was to avoid sushi. She was shocked by this misinformation, since she educates people every day on the food safety steps that have to be taken for high-risk groups - which includes cancer patients. She decided to do something about it by offering food safety classes through Wellspring, a nonprofit organization which exists to help cancer patients and their caregivers, even while battling the disease herself.