Food waste is a pressing issue. Americans dispose of 160 billion pounds of food per year. That’s 40% of all food available, or 730 football stadiums full of discarded but safe food that is still edible. Many restaurants contribute to this waste when they dispose of unsold food at the end of the day.
Food trucks are here to stay. What might have seemed a fad a decade ago is now BIG business. The food truck niche is projected to haul in a whopping $2.7 billion in 2017. It’s not just small players either, many of the largest national chains have trucks on the road, including Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut.
Food needs to be handled correctly from purchase to plate to ensure it’s safe to serve in your restaurants. Safe practices for handling, cooking, and storing food are essential to keeping your customers safe from foodborne illness.
Twenty percent of the total United States’ food supply is imported. To break that down, 70% of our seafood is imported, as well as 35% of our fresh produce. That’s a lot, and it could likely include foods that are being distributed to your restaurants. So, how do we know that the imported food is safe? That’s why we have the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP).
The FSMA Rule on Sanitary Transportation is one of seven foundational rules proposed by the FDA to create a risk-based framework for food safety. The overall objective of the rule is to prevent practices during transportation that create hazards, such as failure of refrigeration, inadequate cleaning of vehicles, and inappropriate packing materials. Ultimately, the rule was put in place to minimize the potential of a...
When the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) passed in 2011, it shifted U.S. food safety policy from a reactive afterthought to a proactive mission. That is, rather than responding to contamination after the fact, the law mandates preventing problems during manufacturing and transport before they occur. FSMA also provides the FDA with new enforcement authorities to achieve higher rates of compliance and tools to...
