February 27, 2008
ServSafe Training Program Offers Assurance to Food Service Industry
LINCOLN, Neb. — Americans eat an average of 30 percent of their meals outside their homes, relying on food service workers to provide them with safe food. That can be dangerous if workers aren't properly trained. Nationwide each year there are 76 million reported cases of foodborne illness, resulting in 300,000 hospitalizations and up to 7,000 deaths.
In 1993, for example, an outbreak of the foodborne E. coli bacteria in Washington left four children dead and hundreds ill in five western states. Investigators traced the outbreak to the Jack in the Box restaurant chain's failure to cook ground beef to a high enough temperature to kill the bacteria.
In the aftermath, Foodmaker, Jack in the Box's parent company, created the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points system, the fast-food industry's first comprehensive food safety program. Foodmaker is now considered the industry's leader in food safety.
Shortly after the E. coli scare, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension began taking steps toward protecting restaurant patrons by offering the nationally accredited ServSafe Food Safety Training program. Since 1993, more than 10,000 Nebraska food service employees have attended the training.
ServSafe was developed by the National Restaurant Association Foundation and is designed to educate food service workers about the importance of safe food handling to prevent foodborne illness.
The comprehensive 16-hour ServSafe class is offered at 10 sites across Nebraska with some locations offering a shorter eight-hour session. Participants include food service workers from restaurants, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, catering services, delis, and convenience stores.
Kris Spellman, director of nutrition services for Grand Island Public Schools, said she took her first ServSafe class 15 years ago and her department has been sending employees to ServSafe since before she became director 10 years ago.
"It's a more in-depth training than I could possibly give my employees," Spellman said.
"We require our head cooks to take ServSafe and other employees depending on their duties," said Spellman. She'd love to send all of her employees "because it helps reinforce how simple things like not washing your hands can have detrimental effects if not done properly."
Cheryl Tickner, a UNL Extension educator in Howard County, who organizes and presents ServSafe training programs, said the classes increase knowledge in a number of ways. Participants learn how to use and calibrate thermometers to determine if they are working correctly, and proper sanitation practices and personal hygiene are heavily stressed. They also learn to use food safety management systems such as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, which analyzes control of biological, chemical and physical hazards in food products.
Tickner would like to see some type of statewide food safety training requirement for managers "because when we train food service managers they in turn train their workers and bring everyone up to date."
Participants who pass the exam at the end of the course are certified by the National Restaurant Association for a five-year period.
Beth Haas, coordinator for education at the Nebraska Restaurant Association, said the training program has changed since its beginning.
"In 1998 they found that it was more beneficial for participants to learn preventative measures instead of teaching them about the specific microorganisms that cause foodborne illness," Haas said.
Haas said it's important to keep up to date with food safety regulations because of changes in the causes of foodborne illness. "Right now Norovirus is the greatest cause of foodborne illness, and because of that we need to reexamine how we handle food," Haas said. Previously, she said, salmonella was the leading cause of foodborne illness.
Lincoln is the only Nebraska city that requires food service workers to go through a safety training course, although all public food service establishments are subject to regulation by either the USDA or Nebraska's Health Department.
Tickner described the importance of a food safety training program such as ServSafe and the piece of mind it should give business owners to know that their food service employees are certified.
"The more food service workers know, the better job they can do to reduce the risk of foodborne illness, and the chance that a facility will be shut down or go out of business as a result."
For registration information contact your local extension office.
Extension is a division of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
2/27/08-JL Cheryl Tickner
UNL Extension Extension Educator (308) 754-5422
 
Dan Moser IANR News & Photography Coordinator (402) 472-3007
Department:
Cooperative Extension
|
