Last night I was dining at a Japanese restaurant when the guy behind the counter wiped his nose with his hands...both of them, then wiped his chopsticks with his fingers before using both the chopsticks and his hands to plate the food. That got me thinking about hygiene, and the regulation of food safety.
My dining companion then reminded me that Bill Granger's iconic Darlinghurst restaurant received a penalty notice for having a broken thermometer in one of its fridges (there was no suggestion that there was anything wrong with the fridge itself). As a result, the penalty notice was subsequently listed on the NSW Food Authority's website (the website is officially titled the "Register of Penalty Notices", but the "What's New" section of the website proudly describes it as "Name and Shame").
This got me thinking: the justification often given for such naming and shaming is that it provides consumers with information by which they can make an informed choice about where they source their food. However, that seems spurious.
If the relevant offence is significant enough that it could rationally affect a consumer's food-purchasing decision, then surely it should be shut down as a risk to public safety until remedial action is taken. If it could not rationally-affect that decision (of which the Bill's broken thermometer is a good example) then what is the utility of naming (and shaming) them to begin with? On the one hand it is an insufficient response to the risk, and on the other hand it is a gratuitous slur occasioned by a technical breach of food safety standards, readily remedied and which did not in the particular case create a risk of harm.
For what it is worth, having been exposed to the publicity at the time, it appears that Bill's is no longer listed on the Register of Penalty Notices. I don't know why that is, although there is a section that allows the NSW Food Authority to remove information about a particular penalty notice from the Register "if it is satisfied it is appropriate in the circumstances"...whatever that means. One wonders, if it was appropriate to remove it, why was it appropriate to have the information on the register in the first place?
Interesting piece. Having worked in hospitality, I would add that many food safety laws seem to have little to do with logic. Also, rules may be made for initially commonsense reasons but applied in ridiculous ways.
ReplyDeleteI worked in a franchise once where we prepared very little food. The only thing we prepared was toast, for which we used tongs or gloves. We served cakes, coffees and pies and washed all out cups and plates in the dishwasher.
We still had to have two sinks - one allocated for handwashing, because of fears of cross-contamination. This rule is based on restaurants, and it's to stop food workers washing their hands in a sink filled with dishes, old bits of food, etc. But as a result, all cafes/similar businesses must install a second handwashing sink at their own cost.
We were also told we couldn't keep our mop or broom in the cafe, we had to keep them in the storeroom, which was over the other side of the food court! This was cited as 'a hygiene issue' but whenever someone spilt something or broke something, it became a safety issue as we couldn't quickly clean up spills!