Inspecting inspection reports, does the type of restaurant change the risk?

Abstract


 Background An estimated of 4 million Canadians (one in eight people) become ill every year from a food-borne illness (Thomas et al., 2013). The economic and social burdens of these illnesses are vast. As restaurants are a big sector of the food industry, improving their food safety would reduce the risk of food-borne illnesses. Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) are on the front line, educating restaurant operators in order to improve food safety. In Metro Vancouver there are many different types of ethnicities and types of restaurants; this provides a challenge for EHOs to know where to allocate their time and resources. Methods The author analyzed 150 Fraser Health inspection reports in the Burnaby, New Westminster and Surrey municipalities. The restaurants fell into three different categories: i) Independently owned ethnic, ii) Independently owned, non-ethnic and iii) chain non-ethnic restaurants. Hazard ratings, number of critical and number of non-critical violations from their latest inspection report were compared. Each violation code was also recorded to identify any infraction trends that exist. Results Analysis of the number of critical violations identified ethnic, chain non-ethnic, and independent non-ethnic restaurants as not being significantly different (p=0.09). The number of non-critical violations was different (0.033), with ethnic restaurants having the most. The number of critical violations, when treating each ethnicity as its own category, is however significantly different (p=0.044) between restaurant types. There was a significant association between hazard rating and restaurant type, with independent ethnic restaurants having the worst hazard rating (p=0.017). Conclusion The type of ownership (independent vs chain) and the restaurant type were not a factor when looking at number of critical violations that a restaurant commits. Independent ethnic restaurants had a slightly higher mean number of critical violations. Japanese restaurants had the highest number of critical violations out of the three ethnicities studied. These findings suggest a slight disparity in risk to public health between ethnic and non-ethnic restaurants.

Critical food safety violations in Surrey

“…His research also found Violation Code 302 to be the most common critical violation among the 150 restaurants sampled. Similarly, the other three critical violations restaurants committed according to frequency were: 205, 301, and 401 (Cseke et al, 2014). The current study revealed that the majority of restaurant operators fail to ensure that cold potentially hazardous foods are not temperature abused.…”

“…Furthermore, these violations were not corrected after consecutive inspections. In addition, a study conducted by (Cseke et al, 2014) reported no significant difference in the number of CVs for non-ethnic chain and independent ethnic restaurants within the Fraser Health region of British Columbia. Nevertheless, employees in both chain and independent restaurants must be vigilant in adhering to food safety guidelines to reduce the likelihood of causing a foodborne illness.…”

“…All five health authorities design their own Food Premises Inspection Reports for EHOs to use. For Fraser Health, the restaurant inspection reports are categorized into five sections: i) Construction and Approvals, ii) Control of Food Hazards, iii) Maintenance and Sanitation, iv) Hygiene and Communicable Diseases, and v) Education and Training (Cseke et al, 2014). Within each section are critical or non-critical violations that contravene the Food Premises Regulations (Figure 1).…”

“…Each violation is rated as low, medium, or high risk and is assigned a number. Afterwards, the EHO totals the violation scores to determine if the food premises overall has a low, moderate, or high hazard rating (Cseke et al, 2014).…”

“…His research reported no significant findings in the number of CVs between non-ethnic chain and independent ethnic restaurants. One possible reason for this is due to changes in management and policies as well as variability in the EHOs' inspection style (Cseke et al, 2014).…”