Employee Hygiene and Handwashing in Retail Foodservice Establishments

In addition to the risk of environmental contamination from Listeria monocytogenes, product temperature abuse, compromised food contact surfaces and unwanted allergen transfers or mislabeled food, one of my biggest fears that keeps me up at night is the daunting task of controlling, educating and monitoring the personal hygiene and handwashing behaviors of food handlers.

A reoccurring hypothetical nightmare of some types of viral or bacterial infections spreading among the masses from contaminated food or an employee you represent would have any food safety practitioner tossing and turning in their sleep. Unfortunately, this bad dream has become reality for some organizations in past foodborne illness outbreaks. The health and well-being of food hanlers and proper hygiene practices often get overlooked in the retail food industry. The employee needs a paycheck to provide for his or her family, and will often neither seek medical attention if ill nor sacrifice missing work if not feeling well. Sometimes, there are cultural barriers or lack of influence outside and inside the workplace that impact proper personal hygiene. Foodservice operators need said employee regardless, as they have a business to run and will often demand the employee show up, even when ill. Labor constraints these days are not conducive to providing any extra breathing room in the work schedule. Food safety, sanitation and customer service suffer when there are not enough employees. On top of that, the broken hand sink is too expensive to fix, and the food safety training? Who needs that? Handwashing? Really? That takes too much time and no one does it anyway. You want me to wear a hat? Why? I’m bald. Does anyone else realize that dripping sweat during food preparation is a problem? Of course, these scenarios are just that, scenarios, but if you don’t think they are all part of the big picture and part of reality in the retail food industry, you are sorely mistaken. What Can Be Done? Whatever happened to “Best Practices?”

If management is merely talking the talk and not walking the walk, employees will just think that the unsanitary behavior is acceptable. Then a cycle of food safety negligence develops and continues. In every case of coaching, training and mentoring food handlers about food safety violations, the risk must be fully explained. If the employee does not understand and was never properly trained, then where is the accountability? Illness, potential life-threatening symptoms, liability, reputation damage, financial loss and lack of employment must be addressed as well, rather than dictating “because management told you so” as a rationale. Sometimes, to fully explain the magnitude of noncompliance, I always fall back on a true story of contamination. Everyone talks about government, regulation and how to eliminate foodborne illness, but what the industry needs to do is improve the oversight, training and funds to facilitate change. Part of the solution does not have to be complicated; it just needs to revisit the basic principles of food safety. – Source: Food Safety Magazine.