Last month, 250 attendees at an educators’ conference in Brisbane, Australia were infected with salmonellosis, a foodborne illness known for causing diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. The conference was held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, which has since taken steps to investigate the cause of the outbreak, examining their supply chain and isolating common sources of Salmonella poisoning, such as poultry and egg products, to discover where the contamination may have occurred.
While the convention center has taken prompt and appropriate action to manage the outbreak, Dr. Douglas Powell, a Brisbane-based food safety expert, recommends that Brisbane at large take measures to improve food safety in an opinion article written for the Courier Mail. His suggestions? To require food safety training and publicize health inspection scores at Brisbane foodservice operations.
“After decades of food safety research,” says Powell, “I can conclude that anyone who serves, prepares or handles food in a restaurant, nursing home, day care centre, supermarket, or local market needs some basic food safety training.” He argues that this training is the first step to preventing common foodservice issues like inadequate handwashing, cross-contamination, and improper cooking and holding temperatures.
“But training is only the start.” Powell also discusses the necessity of incentives for observing food safety principles—in this case, public health inspection scores. He points to Toronto, Los Angeles, and New York as successful cities that publicize restaurant inspection scores. Making these scores public, Powell believes, allows consumers to make informed dining decisions and encourages restaurants to “comply with health regulations . . . to prevent lost business.” Additionally, he argues that “such public displays of information help bolster overall awareness of food safety among staff and the public.”
At present, Powell’s suggestions are essentially just food for thought; it’s anyone’s guess as to whether or not Brisbane’s recent outbreak will spur food safety reform. However, measures like food safety training and public inspection scores present interesting possibilities for preventing future outbreaks, rather than simply managing incidents as they occur.
—Katie Heil
