Assessing Employee Health Policies for Reporting and Excluding Ill Food Employees in Restaurants within the United States.

ABSTRACT: Preventing ill food employees from spreading pathogens to food and food contact surfaces remains an important objective of retail food safety policy in the United States. Since 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended food establishments implement employee health policies that include requirements for the exclusion or restriction of ill food employees and reporting, to the person in charge, symptoms or diagnosis of certain diseases transmitted by food. However, the incorporation of this recommendation has not been widely studied. The purpose of this exploratory study was to assess the presence and prevalence of employee health policies at fast-food and full-service restaurants in the United States. More than 50% of fast-food and full-service restaurants were found to have nonexistent employee health policies for each of the five recommended components specified in the FDA Food Code. Results showed 17.41% of fast-food restaurants and 12.88% of full-service restaurants had all five recommended components. Moreover, most restaurants with all five recommended employee health policy components were part of a multiple-unit operation and were found to have more developed food safety management systems than restaurants with none of the recommended components. Further attention and research into the impediments associated with developing and implementing employee health policies in restaurants is warranted.

Food Safety Management Systems, Certified Food Protection Managers, and Compliance with Food Safety Practices Associated with the Control of Listeria monocytogenes in Foods at Restaurants.

HIGHLIGHTS: Proper cold holding and date marking practices help control Lm growth in foods. Most restaurants had ≥1 instance of improper cold holding. Less than 50% of all cold holding observations were found to be out of compliance. Restaurants in areas requiring date marking of food were more likely to date mark. CFPM did not predict out-of-compliance observations when FSMS effects were considered.

Diversity, distribution and antibiotic resistance of Enterococcus spp. recovered from tomatoes, leaves, water and soil on U.S. Mid-Atlantic farms.

Antibiotic-resistant enterococci are important opportunistic pathogens and have been recovered from retail tomatoes. However, it is unclear where and how tomatoes are contaminated along the farm-to-fork continuum. Specifically, the degree of pre-harvest contamination with enterococci is unknown. We evaluated the prevalence, diversity and antimicrobial susceptibilities of enterococci collected from tomato farms in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Tomatoes, leaves, groundwater, pond water, irrigation ditch water, and soil were sampled and tested for enterococci using standard methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using the Sensititre microbroth dilution system. Enterococcus faecalis isolates were characterized using amplified fragment length polymorphism to assess dispersal potential. Enterococci (n = 307) occurred in all habitats and colonization of tomatoes was common. Seven species were identified: Enterococcus casseliflavus, E. faecalis, Enterococcus gallinarum, Enterococcus faecium, Enterococcus avis, Enterococcus hirae and Enterococcus raffinosus. E. casseliflavus predominated in soil and on tomatoes and leaves, and E. faecalis predominated in pond water. On plants, distance from the ground influenced presence of enterococci. E. faecalis from samples within a farm were more closely related than those from samples between farms. Resistance to rifampicin, quinupristin/dalfopristin, ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin was prevalent. Consumption of raw tomatoes as a potential exposure risk for antibiotic-resistant Enterococcus spp. deserves further attention.

Occurrence and antibiotic resistance of multiple Salmonella serotypes recovered from water, sediment and soil on mid-Atlantic tomato farms.

Salmonella outbreaks associated with the consumption of raw tomatoes have been prevalent in recent years. However, sources of Salmonella contamination of tomatoes remain poorly understood. The objectives of this study were to identify ecological reservoirs of Salmonella on tomato farms, and to test antimicrobial susceptibilities of recovered Salmonella isolates. Fourteen Mid-Atlantic tomato farms in the U.S. were sampled in 2009 and 2010. Groundwater, irrigation pond water, pond sediment, irrigation ditch water, rhizosphere and irrigation ditch soil, leaves, tomatoes, and swabs of harvest bins and worker sanitary facilities were analyzed for Salmonella using standard culture methods and/or a flow-through immunocapture method. All presumptive Salmonella isolates (n=63) were confirmed using PCR and the Vitek(®) 2 Compact System, and serotyped using the Premi(®)Test Salmonella and a conventional serotyping method. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was carried out using the Sensititre™ microbroth dilution system. Four of the 14 farms (29%) and 12 out of 1,091 samples (1.1%) were found to harbor Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica. Salmonella was isolated by the immunocapture method from soil, while the culture method recovered isolates from irrigation pond water and sediment, and irrigation ditch water. No Salmonella was detected on leaves or tomatoes. Multiple serotypes were identified from soil and water, four of which-S. Braenderup, S. Javiana, S. Newport and S. Typhimurium-have been previously implicated in Salmonella outbreaks associated with tomato consumption. Resistance to sulfisoxazole was prevalent and some resistance to ampicillin, cefoxitin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, and tetracycline was also observed. This study implicates irrigation water and soil as possible reservoirs of Salmonella on tomato farms and irrigation ditches as ephemeral habitats for Salmonella. The findings point to the potential for pre-harvest contamination of tomatoes from contaminated irrigation water or from soil or water splash from irrigation ditches onto low-lying portions of tomato plants.