PRIORITY business intelligence

Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) National Retail Food Team executed a ten-year study to measure trends in the occurrence of food preparation practices and employee behaviours at the retail and foodservice level that are believed to most commonly contribute to foodborne illness outbreaks. Direct observations made by FDA specialists, supplemented with information gained from interviews with management and food employees, were used to document the establishments' compliance status for 42 individual data items. These items comprise the contents of 5 major risk factor categories and are based on the provisions of the 1997 FDA Food Code. The 5 major factor categories are the below:

(1) Food from Unsafe Source;

(2) Poor Personal Hygiene;

(3) Inadequate Cooking;

(4) Improper Holding/Time and Temperature, and

(5) Contaminated Equipment/Protection from Contamination

Despite significant improvements in many facility types, the following three Risk Factors--Improper Holding/Time and Temperature, Poor Personal Hygiene, and Contaminated Equipment/Protection from Contamination-- continue to be most in need of priority attention by both industry and regulators.