Incidences of foodborne diseases in the United States have increased significantly. This has made it necessary for government institutions to work towards containing the situation by doing whatever necessary to eliminate the diseases. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is on the forefront seeking to minimize the prevalence of foodborne ailments in addition to ensuring safe food supply by way of supporting research and also education incentives that are likely to offer valuable assistance. Besides, it has become fundamental to address some of the priority issues pertaining to food safety in order to ensure that people get to consume safe food regardless of where they purchase it from. The benefit of getting to adopt a program which is capable of ensuring the safety of food products is of critical essence. Through regulations such as licensing and also regular checks, it is possible that the consumer will be in a position to get safe food commodities at all times.
Food Safety Program
The food and safety program available involves the aspect of licensing and inspecting all the local restaurants within the region. Further areas that are expected to undergo the same process under the program are: Convenience stores, mobile food vendors, grocery stores, caterers, vending machines and temporary food vendors. This is one of the significant methods that has been established in a bid to minimize the risk of food borne diseases. Besides, this is in line with the Uniform Food Safety Code. Another key initiative in this program is the initiation of investigations relating to food borne ailments established via complaints made by members of the public. Moreover, another important agenda involves educating the local food managers and handlers through various training incentives such as Level 1 person-in-charge and level 2 food certification incentives.
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The program is adequately implemented to protect the public. For instance, it advocates for safe quality food (SQF). This form of certification ensures that food of high quality and safety is offered to clients. It is essential since it regulates food products across the entire chain from their production until the reach the end user. There are several significant benefits that accrue owing to SQF. For instance, it appears as the only scheme which manages to integrate quality and food safety ( McSweeney, Calvo & Billman-Jacobe, 2016 ). Owing to its existence in the program, it has also become possible for the authorities to succeed in eliminating multiple and repetitive auditing schemes. It also manages to offer protection to the brand integrity of various entities. Further still, customers are assured of the safety standards of food with packaging being monitored in a bid to improve the quality and safety for foods. By depending on the SQF initiative, it is possible to offer independent certification thus making it convenient for various retailers and providers of food services. Moreover, need arises requiring the maintenance of hazard analysis critical control point and also quality management systems for foods. Having such an incentive is beneficial since it manages to offer assurance to both the consumers and the sellers regarding the quality and safety standards of food. There are incidences where the retailer may end up purchasing food that is deemed unfit for consumption unknowingly. With the existence of such standards, it is highly unlikely that this would occur.
There are further regulations requiring that any person who is seeking to establish a temporary food establishment should first apply for the temporary food establishment permit. This is bound to ensure that some investigations can be conducted to ascertain the safety of food which the vendor is seeking to offer customers. Permanent establishments are, on the other hand, classified in several risk categories. The first group, for instance, involves those that offer hazardous food commodities. The second one comprises of those responsible for providing commercially processed products. For the third category, it may include institutions which cook raw meat or offer unpasteurized products. For the fourth segment, businesses offering potentially hazardous commodities are included. The fifth classification involves establishments which are responsible for delivering food commodities to consumers, for instance, pizza ( Johnston & Yurman, 2018 ). It may also include bakeries and grocery stores. Further businesses that may have been classified under the category are those that smoke food. The program, nonetheless, exempts mandatory permits when religious and charitable endeavors which provide foods and beverages are involved. This is, however, only applies if the foods being offered are non-hazardous. This also applies to the churches who offer members food products at no fee, farmer`s market, in the event that non-hazardous pre-packaged products are being sold, and also ice cream vendors selling pre-packaged commodities. The viability of the program in enhancing food safety can thereby not be underestimated.
Educational Brief
It is possible for the public to protect themselves from foodborne illness. Prevention is touted as the ultimate goal of consumers rather than obtaining treatment for some of the preventable conditions. Part of the responsibility falls under the jurisdiction of the authorities who are mandated to initiate strict regulations through various regulatory agencies. Food safety has to begin at individuals` home. For instance, it is important for the general public to clean their hands and surfaces regularly. It is possible for germs capable of causing food poising to survive in many areas especially in the kitchen. In this respect, every food related business has an obligation to clean its premises and the kitchen on a daily basis. This will minimize the possibility of an aspect of foodborne diseases arising. Moreover, people ought to clean their hands before cooking or touching any food (Minor, Hawkes, McLaughlin, Park & Calvin, 2019) . This implies that the food businesses also ought to provide such an incentive to the client in order to reduce any incidences of poisoning which are capable of occurring. Also when dealing with meat products, it is important for different varieties to be placed separately. Differing cutting boards, for instance can be used to cut different varieties of meat. Juices from meat commodities also have to be kept away from other food products to prevent contamination.
It is also important of the food to be cooked at the right temperatures which are capable of killing harmful germs. Food thermometers are available for use in the kitchen and individuals can make use of them to ascertain that their food is fully cooked before consumption. Various temperature variations have been offered for different food products. For example, 145 0 F for meat such as pork and beef, 160 0 F for ground meats, 165 0 F for poultry and also 165 0 F for casseroles ( Minor et al., 2019 ). Also, refrigerators are best when kept below 40 0 and also, any perishable food commodities have to be refrigerated within 2 hours. Thawing of food should be undertaking using water and not on the counter in order to avoid buildup of bacteria. Some individuals tend to have strong immune systems whereas this is not the case for others, thus, it is important to adhere to the brief in order to minimize any likelihood of foodborne diseases.
Efficiently implementing and evaluating Food Safety
In order to efficiently implement and evaluate one`s food safety and health outreach program, it is fundamental to begin by educating individuals on the real benefits of maintaining safety in regards to consumption. Rolling out education initiatives could be done by creating pamphlets which are offered to individuals detailing some of the important things that they ought to adhere to in order to minimize the occurrence of any food related ailments. Also, the people coming up with the program have to sensitize the food service providers regarding the same initiatiatives. This could, for instance, be done by showing them the likely consequences for failing to adhere to certain guidelines. It is possible for a client to file a legal suite against an establishment for offering food that is unfit for consumption. By setting rules, therefore, it is important for business to be shown that their safety is under consideration since it emerges that they have complied with the standards of safety provided, it could be possible for them to offer a defense in the event that rouge customers seeking to profit from them decide to sue them.
Discussions also ought to be held across all levels of the food chain before initiating policies that are going to be used. Such consultation will ensure that there are no disgruntled traders who are likely to oppose the program. This is also likely to make it possible to create favorable policies for use by all individuals. While evaluating an outreach program it is important to consider whether it is impartial and also suites the needs of both the customers and businesses. One can also compare the outreach program with those already established in other areas so that they can manage to come up with more formidable laws. Besides, investigations on incidences pertaining to foodborne diseases ought to be conducted in order to ensure that regulations protecting consumers from such occurrences are established. The policies generated are, however, amendable in the future, and thus one should not be deterred and end up establishing biased guidelines.
References
Johnston, J. M., & Yurman, R. (2018). The Case of Food Safety Policy. Intergovernmental Relations in Transition: Reflections and Directions , 44.
McSweeney, P., Calvo, J., & Billman-Jacobe, H. (2016). Food safety program design for a food manufacturing process--Case Study.
Minor, T., Hawkes, G., McLaughlin, E. W., Park, K. S., & Calvin, L. (2019). Food Safety Requirements for Produce Growers: Retailer Demands and the Food Safety Modernization Act.
