Distributors are on the road to enhanced food safety with improved protocols and equipment

Nation's Restaurant News,  Sept 3, 2007  by Caroline Perkins

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The entire foodservice channel has food safety in its sights these days. That is not surprising, given all of the foodborne-illness outbreaks that have occurred in the past year. Never in history have consumers been so aware of and are so concerned about the possibility that the food they eat could make them sick--or worse. Operators have a tremendous responsibility within their own four walls to ensure safe food for their patrons. Cleanliness, training and safe practices in the front- and back-of-the-house are paramount. There is a lot to worry, about.

A new Technomic survey of distributors shows that operators at least can be assured that their distributors are focused on the food-safety issues that fall within their purview.

On a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 equals terrible and 100 equals superb, distributors rank their food-safety programs at 90. The rating, reported in the Technomic Distributor Intelligence Report in July, shows food safety's importance to distributors' overall business strategies and reflects the degree of attention they pay to initiatives they have in place.

Distributors are particularly focused on warehouse cleanliness and temperature control, the report noted. That might sound easy, but it's not. When you have 5 million cubic feet of warehouse holding 10,000 products at different temperatures, it's a challenge. For perishables, distributors have the additional challenge of ensuring that the proper temperature has been held throughout the shipping process from the manufacturers' storage facility.

Truck and fleet cleanliness is as important as warehouse cleanliness. Distributors report that 92 percent of their trucks have multiple temperature zones ensuring that each product category is kept at its required temperature. They also are adding such food safety concerns as recall policies and HACCP certification to the decision-making process when selecting suppliers.

They say recall processes for products that have any food safety issue and inspection programs also are at the top of the list in importance. Given the volume and variety of products shipped every day, an efficient recall process is critical.

Sysco, for instance, has an extremely sophisticated recall process that can track all products across the United States. They know when every product was purchased, who bought it, where and when.

A Sysco executive reported last year that the company has an average of five recalls a week. Most of those are voluntary recalls from manufacturers. Other recalls can occur when a chain customer isn't satisfied with a particular product. The system also safeguards against food safety problems like E. coll.

Nine out of 10 distributors reported that they discuss their in-house food-safety initiatives with their sales teams during training sessions. This knowledge can then be passed on to operators to keep them informed that everything possible is being done to deliver safe food for customers.

Food-safety initiatives should be an ongoing topic of conversation between operators and distributors. It's a huge responsibility for the entire channel and not one that should be planned and executed in isolation. It's an all-hands-on-deck exercise with a simple but crucial goal: keeping patrons healthy and happy.

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