Participating Colleges and Universities
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Resulting from the broad diversity in the population of Southern California, individual food preferences have resulted in the proliferation of retail food establishments that cater to specific ethnic specific groups. Common features of the meat department include 1) a service meat and poultry counter; 2) a wide variety of processing and sales of items ranging from fresh whole muscle cuts, "birds" and variety meats to minimally processed items such as ground meat and marinated products; and 3) an unregulated temperature environment in which fresh meat processing occurs.  In addition, certain stores selling fresh seafood also offer "in-house" frying for customers. These characteristics offer many potential opportunities for cross-contamination and microbial proliferation. Thus, a need for an outreach programs serving such communities.

Long-term: The objective of this effort is to develop a food safety task force that will 1) provide HACCP outreach programs specific to retail stores, restaurants and other food service facilities/operators serving disadvantaged and underrepresented communities in Southern California; 2) serve as a resource base for professionals to assist these establishments with the development of food safety/prevention programs; and 3) develop educational support materials, e.g. fact sheets, that will be accessible via the Internet. In addition, the publication of material in different languages will be considered.

This program is designed to improve safe food handling, and preparation by retail establishments, especially with regard to potentially hazardous foods, such as meat and poultry, and would decrease losses to reservation communities from foodborne illness. According to national statistics, about one in every 65 Montanans will be sick by foodborne illness each year. The foodborne illness robs many otherwise healthy people of productive roles. These financial and social losses can be enormous strain on reservation communities as scarce public tax money does not cover lost wages, health care, and investigative costs. Programs designed to improve food preparation in retail establishments would decrease Native American losses from foodborne illness.

Until the last four years, food safety training in any sector of Montana's food system has been sparse, especially in underserved, and/or underrepresented communities such as reservation communities. Unlike many states, Montana does not require a food handling certification for retail food service workers. In 1998, the Montana Environmental Health Association surveyed the attitudes, experiences and knowledge of Montanans toward sanitation and food preparation in restaurants. Results of the survey indicated that over 75 percent of the respondents indicated that they were very concerned with food safety in food service establishments and 45 percent reported that 2 to 5 food service establishments in the last five years had not received their business because of concerns about cleanliness and safety.

Retail food service personnel are at high risk for using unsafe food safety practices because of an adequate training. One of the major barriers to safe food practices in restaurants is a lack of qualified personnel to train retail workers in food safety. In Montana, although there are a variety of nationally franchised operations, the majority of operations are under local ownership and control. Most of these establishments do not have persons on their staff with expertise in food sanitation nor can they afford to hire such people. Currently, Tribal/Indian Health Service (IHS)/County sanitarians, Tribal College/County Extension agents and industry representatives now train food service workers and managers in their counties. However, there remain many underserved and underrepresented communities that still do not have access to consistent, effective food safety training throughout the food system.

The goal of this project is to provide expertise at tribal colleges and within reservation communities to improve the ability of retail food service workers to make informed, responsible decisions related to controlling food safety hazards, especially those hazards associated with meat and/or poultry. In the project's first-year, currently available food safety training will be offered to retail establishments, especially those in retail processing and serving meat and/or poultry products. The Cooperator will work with tribal colleges in developing ongoing education partnerships for food safety to establish training priorities. These training priorities may include train-the-trainer workshops to provide more certified trainers within the reservation communities. The training modules will focus on providing expertise at tribal colleges and within the reservation community to improve ability of retail food service workers to make informed, responsible decisions relating to controlling food safety hazards.

First, the project will establish tribal college education partnerships for food safety. These partnerships may include Tribal college personnel, tribal college extension agents, MSU Extension specialists, and County Extension Agents, Tribal/IHS/County sanitarians, Montana Livestock Meat Inspectors, and state representatives from these agencies. Secondly, these partnerships will establish food safety training priorities -- with emphasis on currently available training in the state. For example, available training currently includes food handler education for commercial and non-commercial audiences, Serve-Safe train-the-trainer and certification programs, HACCP training to sanitarians, extension educators and state meat inspectors and retail establishments, and food handling education for high risk and hard-to-reach audiences. Finally, the partnerships will evaluate current training to determine how to successfully integrate the various food safety materials and training activities ongoing into an educational outreach program.

Rationale for project: Most food poisoning cases are caused by mishandled food and not errors in processing. Although routine inspections of restaurants to prevent foodborne illness is mandated by food sanitation codes throughout the U.S., the efficiency of inspection in doing so is debatable. A 1989 Seattle-King County study demonstrated that restaurants with poor inspection scores and violations of proper temperature controls of potentially hazardous foods were respectively 5 and 10 times more likely to have outbreaks than restaurants with better results. Proper education and training of food service workers are the most effective methods for insuring that sanitation requirements are met.

Increasingly, more food is prepared and consumed away from home and the Mexican food industry is the fastest-growing ethnic food in the country. Because of the demographics in New Mexico, it is the ideal development site for meat handling food safety training materials addressing the unique needs of the Mexican food industry.

To accomplish these goals the program will build on the established food safety training programs of Northern New Mexico Community College located in Espanola, New Mexico and the New Mexico State University located in Las Cruces, in southern New Mexico 40 miles north of the Mexican border. Both institutions are designated Hispanic serving institutions.

The area served by San Bernardino Community College District includes large pockets of highly economically depressed areas. As a result of closings of three major military bases in the early 1990s, the region has lost buying power and thousands of jobs. According to the 2000 U.S. census data pertaining to San Bernardino, the ethnic and racial makeup of  the community is:  44 percent Hispanic, 36 percent non-Hispanic white, 15 percent non-Hispanic black and five percent Asians and Pacific Islanders. According to data compiled by San Bernardino County, Jobs and Employment Services Department, the county will need 13,000 workers to be available to the foodservice industry in 2002. These 13,000 workers will require training or re-training in food safety.  In fiscal year 2000, San Bernardino Community College District trained 8057 individuals in safe food handling. The College also trained 155 restaurant managers in ServSafe. The College offers food handling training programs in both Spanish and English languages. Food handling training programs are taught at area restaurants and other county locations for easy access. Making food safety information available in economically depressed areas is especially important since small retail store owners and small food establishments do not have either expandable resources for training of employees or a resource center they can turn to for affordable food training or consultation.

Short term goal:  This project will develop outreach efforts for the small retail store operators, small food service establishments and their employees in the underserved and/or underrepresented communities. It will seek to promote safe food handling practices and appropriate interventions to reduce hazards associated with foodborne illness, especially at small food retail stores and food service establishments, and those involved in the distribution and delivery to retail stores and food service facilities. This project will develop and adapt educational food safety modules for training small retail store owners, distributors, transporters and food handlers. It will deliver modules by presentations at meetings and disseminate the information through the Internet and publications.