My Food Safety Battle

with Gwyneth Paltrow

Dr. Ben Chapman

Dept of Agricultural and Human Sciences

NC State University

Rocky Mountain Food Safety Conference

May 23, 2017

Need to

know what

they do

Consumers make food choices that impact the

health and wellness of the family and community.

Consumer Test Kitchen initiatives include:

• Hands-on training for field faculty on food preparation and food

preservation

• Video streaming for field faculty and consumers on time sensitive

foods and nutrition issues

• Research in the area of consumer food behaviors including

consumer observation

• Research in the area of recipe development for consumers

including food preservation

What is common sense?

People use things

differently than you think

they do

Third-Party Audit Data

• Eight grocery store

companies

• Continental United States

and Canada

• Data spans 2009-2015

• 72,278 unique store visits

• 11,148,295 data

points/observations

Handwashing violations by

geographic location

Division E. N.

Cent.

W. N.

Cent.

Mid-

Atlan.

N.

Eng

E. S.

Cent.

S.

Atlan.

W. S.

Cent.

Mtn. Pacif.

Pass 4775

0

9841 7486 10132 27739 115337 19216 48014 63793

Violation 2973 377 78 282 1079 2596 765 1653 2056

Prop. 0.062 0.038 0.010 0.028 0.039 0.023 0.040 0.034 0.032

p = 1e-16

Temperature violations by

department

Dept Bakery Deli General Meat Produce Seafood Other

Pass 17627 152831 68418 62665 133830 56095 18320

Violation 47 9473 1482 1255 5613 1018 463

Prop. of

violation

0.003 0.058 0.021 0.020 0.040 0.023 0.025

p = 0

Need to know the science

What data do we have ?

Inserting the stick releases

juice and ‘creates a

microenvironment that

facilitates growth of any L.

monocytogenes cells

already present on the

apple

surface.’ (Glass et al.,

2015)

Know the history, connect it to the

present

Need to

know what

they value

Brian Ronholm, FSIS,

“For consumers, we advise all consumers to safely

prepare raw ground beef products by cooking them to

160 degrees Fahrenheit. When dining out, this is

equivalent to ordering your burger well done.”

Data Collection: Secret

Shopper Project

28

260 restaurants

randomly selected

in 7 states

2 types of

restaurants: chain

and independently

owned

Ordered 2 burgers

to go (medium rare

and well done)

Examples of Server Responses

29

“Eating medium rare

burgers is perfectly fine

and not a problem…"

Told us a story about her

sister eating barely

browned beef (raw in

middle) while she was

pregnant and she is just

fine.

“I was actually going to tell

you about that- we have to

remind you that there is a

risk when you order

undercooked food. You

can still get medium rare,

just need to let you know

about that.”

“Medium rare is

safe. It will be

cooked to about

135.”

“The ingredients used are

good quality and so it’s

not risky…as long as the

outside of the burger is

cooked it is safe because

that is where most of the

bad bacteria is.”

Effective July 1, 2015 it will offer

hourly workers paid sick leave, paid

vacation and tuition reimbursement --

benefits that were previously only on

offer to salaried workers.

Photo credit: NC Archives

Need to know what you want

to change

Majority of home canners have reported not following science-based home preservation methods Receive much of their home preservation information through friends and family Only 45% of respondents thought that home canned foods could be spoiled without obvious signs of spoilage

2012 CDC surveillance

160 cases

25 cases foodborne

12 were linked to 2

pruno outbreaks

Clostridium botulinum

Lancaster, Ohio

One death and 24 illnesses

Linked to a church potluck

Canned potatoes in potato

salad

Consumer Perceptions of Safety of

RTE Foods at Grocery Stores

• Premise: Consumers perceive risks differently than

food safety experts and/or develop opinions and

habits that are not science/realty based

• Objective: Gain insight on perceptions, attitudes, and

self-reported behaviors of consumers who shop at

retail food stores

• Two studies:

o Scary things shopper have seen

o Yuck factor vs risk factors at retail

• Luchansky, J. B., A. C. S. Porto-Fett, and B. Chapman. 2017. A shopper’s eye view of food

safety at retail stores: lessons from photographs taken while grocery shopping. Food Prot.

Trends 37:30-42.

• Levine, K., M. Yavelak, J. B. Luchansky, A. C. S. Porto-Fett, and B. Chapman. 2017.

Consumer perceptions of the safety of ready-to-eat foods in food retail settings. J. Food

Prot. , in press

Imagine you are out at a store and are actually seeing what is shown

in this picture. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being very unsafe and 5

being very safe, what do you think about the situation shown in this

picture in terms of food safety?

0 500 1000

5

4

3

2

1

n=1041

0 200 400

5

4

3

2

1

n=1041

72% said

unsafe/

very

unsafe

38%

said

safe/

very

safe

283 361

74

205 118

72 174

25

749

21

Need to

know what

messages

they hear

Get it right

Hungry-Man pot pie asked

consumers to ensure that the pie

reaches a temperature that is 11

degrees short of the government-

established threshold for killing

pathogens.

And when tested in consumer

microwaves, and following the

directions, it was 30 degrees short

• The risk to

consumers

depended on “

.” o Jim Seiple, a food safety

official with the Blackstone

unit that makes Swanson

and Hungry-Man pot pies

Washing?

Is a consumer advisory for handling

cantaloupes prudent?

Kosa, 2007: 11% of all respondents had a

thermometer

California cantaloupes: http://www.californiacantaloupes.com/our-fruit/storing-and-preparing

People actually get sick

Illnesses are preventable

People have control

Show them how

Explain the why