Newsletter

Food Protection Committee of IEHA

Volume 2, Issue 1

Spring 2016

I n this era of shrinking budg-ets, are there

funding sources that might help local health departments?

David Hopper, Di-rector, Local Health De-partment Outreach, ISDH, told a recent meeting of the Food Protection Committee the answer is yes, un-der Indiana’s Local Health Maintenance Fund.

The money, funded by the tobacco tax, is possible under IC 16-46-10, but there are limitations for it’s use. And funds are only available after applica-tion is made and ap-

proval given.

Indiana law specifies ten areas ranging from communi-cable disease control to food sanitation, to health educa-tion for which funds may be granted, and the application must be specific.

“We always try to say yes,” Hopper told the group.

The amount of money available to each jurisdiction is depend-ent upon population served, with Marion County receiving the largest grant. “The min-imum,” he said, “is just

over $33,000.”

David said a second similar source of funds comes from the Indiana Local Health Depart-ment Trust Ac-count but it has a much

narrower list of ap-proved uses.

David said money may carryover from one year to the next, but may not be used for anything other than the approved purpose.

Janelle Kaufman, Administrator Food & Consumer Safety, Mari-on County Health De-

(Continued on page 2)

Common Touch Surfaces

Good foodservice operators will have cleaning schedules. But are all the areas being cleaned that should be? Outbreaks of conta-gious diseases like No-rovirus have pointed out the need for thor-ough cleaning and san-itizing of food contact

surfaces plus any other areas that are contact-ed regularly by food employees.

Viruses can remain viable on solid surfaces for days and sometimes weeks. Even surfaces that look clean are of-ten contaminated.

Operators often will focus on cleaning

schedules that take care of floors and make sure employees are wip-ing down prep tables, but they will overlook areas like door handles, knobs, and buttons on equipment.

“Common-touch” surfaces are areas that are frequently touched

(Continued on page 3)

What you should know about...

Money for local health departments?

Meat on electrical cord gets HD’s eye

2

What’s next after six outbreaks?

3

Plan now for sum-mer temp events

4

Handling dish machines

5

Morsels, samples and appetizers

6

Inside this issue:

Worthy of note:

• “Common touch” sur-

faces are areas often

touched by many

workers.

• When cleaning, em-

ployees often over-

look handles, door

knobs, and buttons.

• What do workers

touch after contact-

ing the common

touch surfaces?

Money for local health departments? (continued)

partment, gave FPC members first hand accounts about how her de-partment handled the grant appli-cation process. She said her de-partment had applied to AFDO (Association of Food and Drug Of-ficials) for funds to help with their “advanced conformance” with the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards (VNRFRPS). Grant funds would also help update food inspection software, and their website.

(Continued from page 1) Janelle called the grants process a “learning experience” when figuring out how much information needs to go on any grant application. She said they have also

received money from FDA, and in connection with their extra work during the Super Bowl in 2012.

Delnaaz Daruwala, VNRFRPS Project Coordinator, Food Protec-tion Program at ISDH, added that on any grant application, the

grantor will specify what is need-ed. She advised to not request more money than you can handle from any source, but don’t under-estimate your needs. Delnaaz re-minded the group that ISDH, like Marion County, has an office for handling grants, unlike nearly all smaller county health depart-ments, which must handle grant applications on their own.

All three speakers emphasized that there is help available with grant applications.

raw pork and fish were being mar-inated by an employee for his per-sonal use. He added that there was no indication after talking to the owner and reviewing the es-tablishment’s menu that any of the meat would be served to cus-tomers.

“I educated them on the prop-er marinating process under re-frigeration and not outside,” Chris said. “I advised that this practice shouldn’t be done on site even if it is for personal uses,” he added.

The employee was then allowed to remove the products and take them home with the understanding that this not happen again.

Chris said that when working with “multicultural opera-tors” education is the best option and is in line with the health department philosophy

to educate first, especially when problems happen out of ignorance as in this case, when the manager wasn’t aware of the employee’s action.

He said in cases like this, the department will provide videos, pictures, and native language doc-uments to provide training.

“We’ll increase the frequency of inspections,” Chris said.

Meat hanging on an extension cord gets HD’s attention It was something the Vander-

burgh County Health Department had never seen before. They re-sponded after a local TV station received a complaint from a con-tractor working near the back of a restaurant. The complaint indicat-ed that there was raw meat hang-ing on an extension cord strung across the back of the facility.

Chris Borowiecki, Vander-burgh County Health Depart-ment's Environmental Services Director, who responded, said he found raw pork and fish heads suspended by a heavy duty exten-sion cord. His investigation began immediately inside the restaurant by interviewing the manager and conducting a menu review.

Chris said he learned that the

Page 2 Newsletter

“When working with multicultural operators,

education is the best option, especially when problems happen out of ignorance.”

Raw marinated meat hanging outside this Evansville restaurant belonged to an employee. An extension

cord was used to support the meat.

Photo courtesy of the Vanderburgh Co. Health Dept.

So, what are the “common-touch” areas inside an establish-ment? This is best answered by observing employees in action. What areas do they touch over and over? What do they touch af-ter contacting the “common-touch” spots? Telephones used by employees are most frequently overlooked when it comes to cleaning, yet many employees give

by many food employees. Such surfaces should get special atten-tion from managers when estab-lishing cleaning schedules, but often are overlooked altogether. Yet these “common-touch” spots can allow pathogens to be spread even though the food handler is wearing gloves.

(Continued from page 1)

no thought to going back to food prep after handling the phone, while still wearing gloves.

Pathogens, like Norovirus, are spread by people who transmit the virus to food and other per-sons. It is also spread by an em-ployee contacting surfaces that have been touched by an infected

food handler. Cleaning and sanitizing all surfaces can help assure that an outbreak does not occur. This includes tele-phones, even cell phones!

Choptle’s Mexican Grill is reel-ing after a series of foodborne ill-ness outbreaks sickened hun-dreds of customers and led to vol-untarily closing 62 of its restau-rants. The identified pathogens included different strains of E. coli, Norovirus, and Salmonella.

There are chal-lenges ahead for the restaurant to win back customers, and get back in the good graces of regulators. The company recently announced on its website how it plans to meet these challenges. Changes include bringing back commissaries to provide processing of produce be-fore product reaches individual restaurants, by “dicing, sanitizing and hermitically sealing tomatoes, cilantro and lettuce.”

IEH Laboratories will be con-tracted to help provide “a more robust food safety program to en-sure a high level of safety and quality.” High-resolution DNA-based testing will help assure all ingredients are safe before being shipped to restaurants. Chipotle will increase its work with supply

chain vendors, plus increase food safety and food handling training for all workers.

Epidemiological work has linked the E. coli contaminates to

some produce, but the exact connection is difficult to deter-mine as pretty much all of the produce has been consumed. “Serving more than 1 million customers

a day, and using thousands of pounds of produce and meat dai-ly, it's likely the E. coli source was out of the supply chain by the time anyone showed illness symp-toms,” according to the website.

Among other notes from the website included the fact that no employees from affected restau-rants had E. coli. It has tested fresh produce, raw meat, cheese, and sour cream prior to restock-ing its 2,000 restaurants. All in-

gredients on hand in affected res-taurants have been replaced. And, additional deep cleaning and sani-tizing efforts are underway at all restaurants.

Outbreak timeline Food Safety News spelled out

the five Chipotle outbreaks.

The first one was in Seattle last July - 5 sick from an un-known source of E Coli O157:H7.

Next, Simi Valley, California, in August with 324 sick from an unknown source of Norovirus.

The third came in Minnesota during August and September when 64 were sickened from to-matoes contaminated with Salmo-nella Newport.

The fourth outbreak covered the states of California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Fifty Two people were sick from an unknown source of E. coli O26.

The fifth outbreak came in De-cember in Boston with 136 people sick from an unknown source of Norovirus. A possible sixth out-break was reported in December.

“Chipotle will increase food safety and handling for all

workers and add DNA testing to its food supplies.”

What’s next after six illness outbreaks in six months?

What you should know about... (con’t)

Volume 2, Issue 1 Page 3

Reusable grocery bags can be cross contamination issue Reusable grocery bags keep

gaining in popularity as consum-ers try to do the right thing by keeping more paper and plastic bags from ending up in landfills.

But a new study coauthored by Charles Gerba, PhD, professor of soil, water, and environmental science at the University of Arizo-na, says such bags have been shown to be a haven for bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella.

“These findings,” Dr. Gerba said, “show a significant threat to

public health. Furthermore, consumers are alarmingly una-ware of the risk.”

Dr. Gerba said such bags should be cleaned and sanitized weekly, especially if they contained raw meat. He said the bacteria levels found in the study were significant enough to cause serious illness, especially

among children, while 97 per-cent of those interviewed were unaware of the risks.

This study comes as neigh-boring California is consider-ing banning plastic grocery bags. The study concluded that the public health conse-quences should be addressed with the increased use of re-

usable bags, achievable with a public education campaign.

(University of Arizona press release)

organizer for a list of vendors they expect might be selling food.

Set a deadline. Stick to it. No vendor or event organizer

has the authority to change your ordinance or dictate health de-partment policy. It is reasonable to set a deadline for permit appli-cations and fee collections. Don’t

try to do this in the field during the event when you should be concentrating on conducting in-spections. Be prepared to stop vendors who appear unan-nounced and expect to be allowed to operate. Advise event organiz-ers what to expect. Once vendors

learn your department will apply the rules consistently, they will follow them. Remem-ber you’re helping the vendor by permitting him to operate; he’s not doing you a favor by showing up, so don’t be intim-idated. Good vendors are will-

ing to comply but expect fairness. They expect you to ask the same compliance of others.

Sometimes, event organizers will hold planning sessions that may include prospective vendors. Someone from your health depart-ment should attend, and there is no reason why the health depart-ment couldn’t also offer some pre-event food safety training.

Temporary vendors should be expected to meet the requirements of 410 IAC 7-24. Some judgment may be used based upon the menu to be prepared and served (risk assessment), but insist upon no bare-hand contact with food, proper handwashing, and that sick employees do not work around food. Event organizers can reject any vendor that doesn’t meet their standards, even though the health department might not have grounds to do so.

Inspectors should ask tempo-rary vendors the same inspection-oriented questions as they would permanent operators and include a complete menu review.

Plan now for summer temporary events

D o your health depart-ment inspectors dread the summer season of

temporary events? The secret of success, as experienced inspec-tors know, is to control the situa-tion rather than let the situation control you. This means having a plan.

Most of the temporary vendors visit during specific events rather than popping up at random. The first step is to contact the “event organizer” of the fair, festival, farmers market, etc. and explain the health department needs to assure compliance with food safe-ty rules and permit requirements that it is legally obligated to en-force.

Explain that by law, all food vendors must be registered with the health department before any food sales. They must show they are properly equipped and able to protect all food items before they operate.

Ask the event

Page 4 Newsletter

“Remember that you’re helping the vendor by

permitting him to operate. He’s not doing you a favor by

showing up.”

sis, and epidemiologi-cal evidence had linked the cases to prepackaged salads prepared at a Dole processing facility in Springfield, Ohio. The salads were sold under various brand names.

Although cases began last fall, the link to the Dole facility wasn’t

The Centers for Disease Con-trol and Prevention (CDC) has re-ported it is collaborating with public health officials in several states and the FDA following a series of reports of Listeria mono-cytogenes-related illnesses.

Reports began surfacing last fall that fifteen people in eight states had become ill from listerio-

known until January when laboratory results con-firmed the connection. Dole voluntarily withdrew prod-ucts, and stopped all oper-ations, at that plant. The

salad products were withdrawn from establishments in 23 states including Indiana, and three Ca-nadian provinces.

Many times during an inspection, inspectors will ignore what they don’t un-derstand or don’t recog-nize. Too often dish ma-chines fall victim to this.

First things first How does the dish ma-

chine sanitize? It will al-ways be by either heat or chemi-cal, but determining the sanitizing method guides you to what to look for next.

Every dish machine has (or should have) a data plate. This will give all the basic information about the unit including the type of sanitation, what the nominal readings on the gauges should be, and the cycle time or conveyor speed.

Chemical machines don’t need a lot of heat beyond the wash cy-cle as it’s the chemical doing the work. A sanitizing water tempera-ture that’s too high in a chemical machine will cause the chemical to dissipate too rapidly and not work. A conveyor type dish ma-chine will use hot water coming in the inlet about 180oF. This will heat the dishes to a surface tem-

perature of 160oF when exposed to the heat for the proper amount of time. Also check the fi-nal rinse pressure.

Heat sensitive tapes that turn black when ex-posed to 160oF are a good way to determine

sanitizing is achieved, but a maxi-mum registering thermometer might be preferred. It will tell you how close the temperature is to being correct if it’s too low, help-ing guide you toward the problem.

Three places to check for more information: the data plate, the label on the chem-ical sanitizer con-tainer (if a chemi-cal machine), and of course, the appropriate sections of the food code.

Checking the machines Proper maintenance and

cleaning is necessary for a dish machine to function as designed. If there are curtains, are they in good shape?

Look inside for signs of food

and other debris that might block water nozzles. Are the nozzles plugged with gunk or mineral de-posits? Blocked nozzles will keep the water from reaching all utensil surfaces which may prevent dish-es from being sanitized no matter what the gauges say.

If in doubt, check the sanitiz-ing temperature in more than one location inside. Use rubber bands to secure the thermometer (removed from its case) vertically in a utensil basket. Heat tapes should be attached to a clean chi-

na plate (not met-al). Unless the dish machine has just been used, run it through one or two cycles prior to checking the sanitizing temper-

ature. This isn’t necessary with a chemical machine. Insert a test strip anywhere water has pooled following the final rinse. (All chemical machines will use some form of chlorine solutions.)

Look for signs of water leaks or other plumbing issues. All should have indirect waste water disposal by design.

“Unless the dish machine was just used, run it through one

or two cycles prior to checking the sanitizing

temperature.”

What’s bugging you - how to handle dish machines

Multistate Listeria outbreak prompts salad withdrawal

Volume 2, Issue 1 Page 5

IEHA Mission:

To promote, preserve and protect environmental public health in the State of Indiana, and to encourage a spirit of cooperation among all environmental health stakeholders while serving its members in the regulatory, industry and

academic communities.

The Food Protection Committee (FPC) is one of four

standing subcommittees of the Indiana Environmental

Health Association. The committee meets approximately

four times per year with dates and locations chosen by the

members. Its focus is to discuss food safety related issues

of interest to its members. While all IEHA members and

guests may attend meetings, only voting members, as spec-

ified in the IEHA Constitution and Bylaws, may vote. Meet-

ing information is disseminated by email. To be added to

the email list, contact one of the co-chairs, or your IEHA

chapter representative.

FPC Co-chairs: Sharon Pattee, Jennifer Asbury.

FPC Newsletter Editor: Ed Norris

ments, fermented and acidified

foods, sous vide, and how

these processes are impacted

by the food code. One session is

June 21 to 24 in Danville, and

the second will be September

12 to 16 in Evansville.

• The FPP is also plan-

ning to bring back the

Food Safety Symposium

in November with a loca-

tion either in Hamilton

or Johnson County. De-

tails on all trainings will

be coming from the FPP.

The last symposium

was held in 2008.

• All of the FPC Newsletters are

posted on the IEHA website. Go

to www.ieha.org and click on

“committees,” then click “food

protection committee,” and then

“newsletters.”

• The Food Protection

Program at ISDH

has announced that

Dr. Brian Nummer,

nationally recog-

nized expert in food

processes, will be

the presenter for

two training ses-

sions on topics

ranging from reduced oxygen

packaging, variance require-

Morsels, samples and appetizers

2016 FPC meeting dates

• February 17

• June 15

• August 17

• November (date to be

announced)

All meetings are held in the

conference room at the IDEM Shadeland office

2525 N. Shadeland Ave. Indianapolis.

Note:

Meeting time is 9:30 to approxi-mately noon local time. All

meetings are on Wednesday.

These are changes from 2015.

Food Protection Committee IEHA

P O Box 457 Indianapolis, IN 46206-0457

Indiana Environmental Health Association

Food Protection Committee

FPC Email: spattee@isdh.in.gov jkasbury@purdue.edu

FPC Newsletter editor:

fsio9@yahoo.com

Check the IEHA website:

www.iehaind.org