The Importance of Proper Documentation in Food Safety | Episode 53
Francine Shaw, CP-FS, FMP
CEO @ Savvy Food Safety l Co-Host @ "Don’t Eat Poop" Podcast ??? l Food Safety Expert ?? l Advisor-Consultant ????♀? l Published Author ?? l Keynote Speaker ?? l ? Goddess of Food Safety ?????
In episode 53 of Don't Eat POOP! A Food Safety Podcast , Matt Regusci and I are talking about something that hit a little too close to home.
In Lewiston, ME, a veteran restaurant inspector and the long-time and respected Code Enforcement Director are being ostracized and possibly fired for doing their job and asking that a popular local restaurant close their doors while they remediate a cockroach infestation.
During my journey as a health inspector, I faced a very similar situation and I share what that experience was like, including being threatened with a gun and taken in front of the City Council for a grilling.
In this episode:
The Realities of Being a Food Safety Inspector or Auditor
Can you imagine getting fired for doing your job too well??
Unfortunately, that’s the case for many in the food safety industry who see their jobs being threatened by doing the right thing.
Do you know that situation where there’s a sudden rise in the crime rate after more money has been invested in the police force? It’s not that the crime wasn’t there before, it’s just that there are more people to catch and report it. However, the public doesn’t like the idea of more crime and will often be very vocal about their displeasure.
The logic is the same when it comes to food safety auditing and inspection.
When we get someone who comes in that knows what they're doing, that believes in their job, that understands that their job saves people's lives, and makes some tough calls, they are sometimes ostracized and risk losing their jobs (or worse). Again, not because the risks to public health weren’t there before, but because they were brave enough to do the right thing (their job, by the way) and make it known when people just wanted to bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything was fine.
Talk about shooting the messenger, right?
My Experience Facing Backlash from the Public as a Health Inspector
When I was doing health inspections, I was the health inspector for a small town.
When I closed a very well-known restaurant for multiple violations, one of them being a ??cockroach infestation??, I ran into some serious trouble.
They had a gun out to intimidate me while I was closing the restaurant and I can’t believe I wasn’t killed that day. They even sent me a Cease and Desist letter. Things were ugly.
Lastly, they had friends on the Town Council and they complained to them about my decision. Before it was all said and done, I ended up at a meeting in front of the Town Council with a whole bunch of people in the audience from the general public.
I was there to defend what I did and why I did it. I went very well prepared. I think what they failed to realize was that at that point in my career, I was already an expert in my field.
So, I went with all kinds of documentation. I had the inspections. I had all the statistics and the data about what could happen based on what I found within the facilities. I had all kinds of information that I took to present to the Council.
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I was very fortunate in the sense that probably somewhere between 25-40% of the board members worked in the medical field. They understood exactly what I was saying when I started talking about the various kinds of mold in the ice machines, cockroach infestations, the diseases that could be spread, and all of the other things that were wrong within this facility.
This was a very well-known restaurant within the community so these people actually ate at this facility. You should’ve seen their faces as I went through the very vivid images I had of the things I saw and the written documentation I brought.
I had a PowerPoint presentation and I had the images. I did a 40-minute presentation about not only this specific facility but some other facilities as well with Q&A at the end in front of the Town Council and the general public that was there basically just to slander my name.?
When I was finished, there was nothing they could say because I was so well prepared and the documentation spoke for itself that there wasn't much that they could say after the presentation was done.
The Power of Proper Documentation
Something that I'm told a lot is that health inspectors are afraid to close restaurants because they don't have the support of the legal teams and I think that's a shame.
Health inspectors and auditors need to be able to do their job! They're there for a good reason and that's to protect the public's health.
The solution to this that Matt and I have found throughout our careers is exactly the weapon I wielded to defend myself in front of the Town Council: PROPER DOCUMENTATION.
Remember that you can't close a restaurant just because you're having a bad day. You can't close a restaurant or a facility unless you have the appropriate documentation, be that written or visual.
If you have the appropriate documentation, there's nothing anyone can sue you for (or that a City Council can pin against you).
[TRUE STORY] If I walk into a restaurant and find goat legs hanging over the edge of a box, with the carcasses inside the box and multiple other types of food that aren't USDA-approved, and I close that facility, what are they going to sue me for? As long as I document everything correctly (pictures will go a long way here) I’m safe.
Matt said that he got threatened to be sued a few times by companies. Things work a little differently for his business because, contrary to health inspection documents, third-party supply chain audits are not public documents.
Every time he got accused of negligence and that his auditor was doing something wrong, they did an investigation. If they found the auditor was absolutely correct and the client had issues, they usually went forward and said that they were going to sue him.?
Every single time, Matt said “Okay, fine. I'm not settling. I will not settle. I am going to take this to court. We will ask for everything to be open and public and your company will now be shown to the world about what it is my auditor found (and properly documented).”
Turns out that Matt’s business was never sued because of things like that. Nobody wanted all that information his auditors gathered to be open to the public.
So, no matter your role in the Food Safety world, remember that appropriate documentation is your best friend.
If you liked hearing some of my “too-out-there-to-actually-be-true” real stories from my thirty-plus-year career as a foodservice professional, you will find even more of them in my book ‘Who Watches the Kitchen?’ on Amazon!
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