Safety: Safe Operations & Food Handling During COVID-19
Safety: Safe Operations & Food Handling During COVID-19
Past Event
Wednesday April 29, 2020
Coronavirus necessitates new ways of working to keep employees and customers safe. From social distancing to hand washing and “A/B teaming,” there’s an entirely new set of best practices to implement in addition to all-important food safety practices. Hear from a panel of safety experts and frontline workers about the best ways to run your organization in these risky times.
Panelists
Su-Lin Terhell
Operations and Strategy Manager, Replate
Su-Lin Terhell
Operations and Strategy Manager, Replate
Su-Lin's career has spanned environmental science, geographic information system (GIS), and technology. Her food sustainability passion started at UC Davis where she studied environmental science and worked in the university's sustainability offices. As Operations Manager at Replate, Su-Lin combines her analytical and environmental interests to redistribute surplus food throughout the US.
Kevin Smith
Senior Advisor, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Kevin Smith
Senior Advisor, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, U.S. Food and Drug Administration
As a Senior Advisor in FDA’s Office of Food Safety, Kevin Smith advises FDA leadership on strategic initiatives and program development related to FDA’s food safety mission. In addition to leading FDA’s efforts on food waste and recovery, Kevin co-leads the implementation of regulations for the sanitary transportation of human and animal food. During his 30-year career in Environmental Health, Kevin has worked for a leading third party certification firm and agencies at the federal, state, and local level, including serving as the Director of FDA’s Retail Food Protection Staff for over 8 years. Kevin earned his BS in Food Science from the University of Delaware and his Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Ben Chapman, PhD
Professor and Food Safety Extension Specialist, North Carolina State University
Dr. Ben Chapman, PhD
Professor and Food Safety Extension Specialist, North Carolina State University
Dr. Ben Chapman is a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. As a teenager, a Saturday afternoon viewing of the classic cable movie, Outbreak, sparked his interest in pathogens and public health. With the goal of less foodborne illness, his group designs, implements, and evaluates food safety strategies, messages, and media from farm-to-fork. Through reality-based research, Chapman investigates behaviors and creates interventions aimed at amateur and professional food handlers, managers, and organizational decision-makers; the gatekeepers of safe food. Ben co-hosts a bi-weekly podcast called Food Safety Talk and tries to further engage folks online through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and, maybe not surprisingly, Pinterest. Follow on Twitter @benjaminchapman.
Tracy Chang
Chef/Owner, Pagu
Tracy Chang
Chef/Owner, Pagu
Tracy Chang is the chef/owner of PAGU restaurant in Cambridge, MA. She is a Boston College alum, with a B.S. in Finance. She also holds certificates in pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu Paris. She trained in the kitchen with three star Michelin chef Martin Berasategui in San Sebastian, Spain, worked on his television programming and spearheaded his communications and public relations. She has also been a teaching fellow at the Harvard Science & Cooking Program, founded by Spanish Chef Ferran Adria. Prior to opening PAGU, she founded a pop-up restaurant, Guchi’s Midnight Ramen and hosted events with restaurants, startups, nonprofits, and universities. She is an alum of the James Beard Foundation Bootcamp for Policy & Change program, and a 2020 James Beard Best Chef Northeast semifinalist. Recently she helped launch the Off Their Plate initiative in Boston, feeding healthcare workers in the emergency departments dealing with Covid-19, while providing economic relief to restaurant employees. The initiative has expanded to nine cities nationwide, raised more than $3 million, and restored more than $1.5 million in wages.
Event Resources
Key Takeaways
PREVENT PERSON-TO-PERSON TRANSMISSION
“We don’t have examples of food or food packaging leading to [COVID-19],” shared Ben. Our focus should therefore be on preventing person-to-person transmission. For that, CDC-recommended hand washing, social distancing, cloth face coverings and mask wearing, cough and sneeze catching, and cleaning and disinfecting are still best.
LABELING
Ben stressed the importance of allergen and temperature labeling, even as FDA has rightly relaxed labeling regulations to keep food moving through the chain. Tracy highlighted that she and Off Their Plate place allergen information on every meal they make for healthcare workers. As for temperature labels, it remains vital to include thawing instructions, storage temperatures, and safe minimum internal temperatures.
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