Attention restaurant managers, you should read this article from Fox News about a pilot study between the NYC Health Department, Columbia University, and Yelp; where
researchers combed through Yelp reviews to identify food borne illness
outbreaks. They were able to identify 468 posts that were consistent
with food borne iIllness and only 15 of those cases had been reported to
the health department. The health department used this information to
launch 3 investigations into restaurant’s mentioned in the posts.
In the article the researchers said it took a ton of time to
conduct the study because they manually went through the posts and
followed up with individual posters. In my opinion this is the wave of
the future; we as diners are posting more and more information online to
social networking sites that are public and with a technology
investment into the process this becomes a simple data mining exercise.
This data could be accessed in real time and used to direct
inspections. It is conceivable in the near future that you could get a
Yelp review that contains a keyword the health department is monitoring
for and within a few days you are getting an additional health
inspection. This could lead to an increase in fines levied on
restaurants.
If these types of programs are put in place restaurants are going
to have to invest in systems for inspection record keeping and hold onto
those records for longer. We are already seeing this with our New
Jersey Mobile Inspector clients
where the first thing that happens when a health inspection begins is
they have to produce their line checks and temp logs. Mobile Inspector
keeps all inspections and temp logs online so they are easy to access by
restaurant managers. In the scenario above you could have a health
inspector requesting your temp logs for April 4th in the evening because that is when the Yelp review stated that the person got sick.
It behooves restaurant managers to have an inspection program in
place to insure that they are serving safe and delicious food to their
patrons. This type of government monitoring of social media outlets is a
perfect example of the 80/20 rule being applied, let the patrons tell
you where you should be focusing your health inspections and get 80% of
the return for 20% of the effort.
Here are some trends that we are seeing in the Government Health Inspection realm:
- Local news is taking a more active role in food safety: in St. Louis a local NBC station did an expose on school cafeteria cleanliness, in Denver the Fox affiliate posts health inspection violations on their websites and frequently does stories on restaurants that fail.
- Fines are increasing. In Denver total restaurant inspection fines levied grew almost 500% from 2008 through 2011 while the total number of inspections a year decreased by 1000 during the same period.
- Technology is making it easier for the restaurants and the inspectors to perform their jobs.
- Health Inspections are one of those things that people want from their government, so there will rarely be a public outcry around tougher food safety inspections and increased restaurant fines.
For more information on Mobile Inspector please click here, if you have a question for me around restaurant inspections or franchising please send me an email at Tommy@wevogroup.com.
