Food Safety Awareness for Restaurant and
Other Food Service Organizations

Objective: To aid in the training and understanding of food service workers' safe and unsafe food preparation practices at the population level.

Food Safety Rules

The food vendors in your community, like restaurants, delis, grocery stores, and others, must follow accepted practice and local food safety rules. These rules are set by your city, county, or state, and National programs, like the National Restaurant Association. All food safety rules have similar requirements about:

  • Safe source: Food or food ingredients come from a safe source.
  • Safe temperature: Food is held at the correct cold or hot holding temperatures.
  • Proper cooking: Food is cooked properly, especially foods such as meat, poultry, and pork.
  • Proper handling: Food is handled to prevent cross-contamination from the environment (for example, common work areas or common utensils).
  • Proper hand washing: Food handlers know how to prevent contamination, especially food handlers who may be sick with vomiting or diarrhea.

Each year in the United States millions of people become sick and approximately 9000 people die from eating contaminated food. Many restaurants lack the proper policies and education of employees in the areas of food storage, preparation, and serving, proper hygiene, and bacteria control. In a recent audit of policy management, one-third of the restaurants’ policies did not specifically address the circumstances under which food workers should handle food, or what safety precautions should be enforced. For example, 20% of workers said that they had worked while ill with vomiting or diarrhea for at least one shift in the previous year. As Owners and Managers, we need to weigh the balance between food safety and employee performance. In a 2013 Study, 486 randomly selected food workers were interviewed for food service procedures. They commonly reported risky food preparation practices. For example, workers said that they did not always wash their hands or change their gloves between handling raw meat and ready-to-eat (RTE) food (23% and 33%) and had worked while sick with vomiting or diarrhea.

Food Safety Solutions

Every food handling business needs someone certified in food handling and preparation (ServeSafe Certificate), but getting all workers to understand and follow the rules can be a daunting task for any Owner.

In this 90-minute program, we will cover:

  • Health and safety reasons for good food practices
  • Awareness of improper food storage and process, cleaning / sanitation, and prep-to-table considerations
  • What are laws, policies, procedures and how to follow them in your place of employment
  • Identify the kinds of preventive measures they may take to minimize the risk of food contamination
  • Establishing a quality management system

The price for each session is $395.* (we can accommodate up to 25 people at each session).
*Plus mileage from our office in Reading

ZEE Medical Reading’s Professional Services Group has the talent and the experience to help you plan for your future. For more information on our capabilities, and where we might fit into your organization, contact Dale Rothenberger, ZEE Medical Services at 484.239.6925 (d.rothenberger@zeemedrdg.com).