A state food safety and sanitation inspector visited Wrangell last week as part of the program’s ongoing efforts to conduct on-site inspections within its limited budget.
The inspector was in town for a routine check on a seafood processor that ships some of its products overseas. The U.S. Department of Commerce contracts with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation food safety and sanitation program to conduct inspections of seafood operations, explained Kimberly Stryker, program manager.
“We also did some retail food service work while we were in Wrangell to make the best use of our resources,” she said last week.
The staffer visited four food service providers in Wrangell, Stryker said.
The program has just 14 full-time inspectors to cover the entire state except Anchorage, which handles its own municipal food safety program. Those 14 staffers also review applications for food service permits, which cost $400 a year for businesses with 25 or fewer seats and $490 a year for seating up to 100.
In addition to reviewing new business permits and keeping track of existing food service establishments, those same inspectors are responsible for seafood processors, tattoo and body-piercing shops, public pools and spas.
“We’re pretty behind,” Stryker said. “We don’t have the resources to inspect every site in every community.”
Managing the workload means focusing on higher-risk areas in kitchens, food preparation and storage areas, she said. That includes, for example, restaurants that prepare soup or chili to serve one day and then cool and store it to serve the next day, and hospitals that serve at-risk patients.
“Cooking, cooling and then reheating is going to be a higher risk than cook and serve,” she explained. “The major emphasis of our food establishment inspections is to focus attention on risk factors that have been shown to be directly linked with the causes of foodborne illnesses.”
The program tries to visit higher-risk food service and retail operations once every three years, while low-risk businesses may never see an on-site inspector, Stryker said. “We also factor in complaints, facility history, length of time between inspections and risk.”
Virtual visits are something new, using online video walk-throughs. “We’ve been able to use technology in good ways.”
Statewide, the top four food handling mistakes seen by inspectors are improper temperature control, contaminated surfaces, poor personal hygiene (working while sick, a lack of handwashing, not wearing sanitary gloves when handling food that is going to the customer), and cooking temperatures.
In Wrangell, during 21 routine site visits from January 2020 to present, inspectors found inadequate hand washing facilities in almost half the cases. Other common problems were improperly cleaned and sanitized food-contact surfaces, not having a state-certified staffer assigned to managing food safety, improper cooling times and temperatures, and improper storage of toxic substances at the business.
“When we see practices that indicate a gap in food safety, we do two things,” Stryker said. “First, we work with the operator to correct the problem while we are there, then we work with them to find a way to control the practices after we leave so they can prepare and serve safe food to their customers every day,” she said.
“Your consumer expects that the food they eat isn’t going to hurt them.”
In addition to rules for operations at restaurants, food trucks, temporary food stands and other providers, state law limits where businesses can get the food they serve. “There are some exceptions, one example is raw agricultural products,” Stryker said.
Meats have to come from a U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved slaughterhouse and processing facility. Seafood has to come from a commercial processor, though a restaurant can apply for a variance so that they can buy up to 500 pounds of seafood a week directly from fishermen.
The rules are different for homemade foods.
State law allows homemade food to be sold without a permit or inspection, such as baked goods, eggs, produce, jams and jellies and honey sold directly to consumers. “There are no requirements regarding the kitchen being used, as long as it belongs to the producer or is leased by them,” according to the program’s website.
Reader Comments(0)