Execs exchange ideas, practices at Food Safety Symposium

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 20, 2006 by Peter Romeo, Alan J. Liddle

Charlotte, N.C. -- How do you convince management to commit more time, money and effort to preserving food safety when the ideal return on the investment is nothing?

That irony--the more you do to protect guests and a brand's reputation, the less you can expect anything to happen--was one of the issues addressed by the 30 quality-assurance and purchasing executives who gathered here recently for the first Nation's Restaurant News Food Safety Symposium, a three-day forum on the challenges of preserving the safety of restaurant fare.

The conference, sponsored by Ecolab, convened as the extent of the foodborne illness outbreak prompted by E.coli-contaminated spinach was coming to light in the national media, injecting a real-world sensibility into the discussions of ideal strategies and tactics. Participants pressed one another for details about the unfolding situation and openly sought advice on such matters as whether their brands should pull appetizers made with cooked, frozen spinach.

The information sharing underscored the assertion of keynote speaker Steve Grover, vice president of food safety, quality assurance and regulatory compliance for Burger King Holdings Inc., the Miami-based parent of the ll,400-unit quick-service chain. "Food safety is not a competitive issue--we should never compete on food safety," said Grover, who formerly headed the National Restaurant Association's health and regulatory affairs office. "I'll share my ideas. We all sink or swim together on this issue."

He and other attendees voiced appreciation for the opportunity to compare notes on the problems commonly faced by restaurant quality-assurance executives, not the least of which is a lack of appreciation within some departments at company headquarters.

"We're striving for nothing to happen," and to have nothing to show for the quality assurance department's efforts, Grover said. "What kind of a return on investment is nothing?"

As a result, "five, eight years down the road, the budget starts getting cut," Grover continued. "People start thinking that nothing happening is the norm."

Yet, he stressed, if a company bets incorrectly that rigorous preparation is unnecessary, "you may not survive."

Grover cited findings that it takes 19 minutes for an incident to become worldwide news. "If you're not proactive," Grover said, "you have 19 minutes" to resolve the situation and protect your brand.

He and other attendees stressed the imperative of planning ahead--of having a detailed, comprehensive strategy drafted to avert that 19-minutes-to-disaster scenario.

One of the specific recommendations offered was using simply worded but precise contracts that spell out fundamental standards with suppliers. Having such contracts on file also can put restaurant companies in a stronger position from which to deal with insurance companies after the outbreak of a foodborne illness, according to attorney Tim Pickwell, a panelist at the symposium.

But at the same time, attendees agreed, a brand needs to have a crisis management plan in hand, in case the worst happens despite their best efforts. The plan should extend to such details as having weekend telephone numbers for suppliers' emergency contacts, or knowing ahead of time which headquarters executive will serve as spokesperson in the event of a food-contamination catastrophe.

Many attendees also emphasized the need to make that defensive strategy a true action plan by securing buy-in from all levels of the organization, from the chief executive down to unit-level managers and staffers. Yet few of those stakeholders appreciate the importance of food safety until there's a breach, attendees contended.

"We have to sell this to our executives," Grover said. "We need to tell them, 'If we do this, chances are you won't be in court; you won't be on TV.'"

In a concluding session, attendees broke into teams to hammer out practical solutions to common problems. Among the recommendations was adding crisis management training to the curriculum for managers-in-training. The group also advised the creation of unit-level programs for dealing with food allergies.

Although unit-level training was mentioned several times as a key to preserving food safety, symposium attendees acknowledged the difficulties of getting hourly workers to follow even the most basic of prescriptions, particularly frequent hand washing. Several attendees cited contests that reward kitchen workers who cleanse their hands. Others recommended creating educational games and constantly harping on the importance of the safety step.

Yet, Grover said: "I'm constantly amazed at the creativity employees show in getting around the rules. If you base a product's safety on 100-percent execution, then you're going to have a problem. You have to ask yourself, 'Where are the employees going to take a shortcut?'"

Linda Gilardi, senior director of quality assurance for Compass Group North America, the foodservice contractor based here, said her organization tries to push a food-safety sensibility down to line employees by directing managers to conduct five-minute training sessions on fundamentals. One installment might focus on hand-washing or proper glove use, while another might remind staffers of the proper way to use thermometers.