Video study pulls out 'dirty' secrets of restaurants

“Meals prepared outside the home have been implicated in up to 70 per cent of food poisoning outbreaks, making them a vital focus area for food safety professionals,” says Ben Chapman, assistant professor and food safety specialist in family and consumer sciences at NCSU, which led the study.

Researchers placed eight small video cameras in unobtrusive spots around kitchens that volunteered to participate in the study.

“We found a lot more risky practices in some areas than we expected,” Chapman says. For example, most previous studies relied on inspection results and self-reporting by food handlers that found that cross-contamination was relatively infrequent. But Chapman’s study found approximately one cross-contamination event per food handler per hour.
In other words, the average kitchen worker committed eight cross-contamination errors, which have the potential to lead to illnesses, in the course of the typical eight-hour shift. Cross-contamination occurs when pathogens, such as Salmonella, are transferred from a raw or contaminated source to food that is ready to eat: For example, using a knife to cut raw chicken and then using the same knife to slice a sandwich in half. Cross-contamination can also result from direct contact, such as raw meat dripping onto vegetables that are to be used in a salad.

“Each of these errors would have been deemed a violation under US Food and Drug Administration Food Code inspection guidelines,” Chapman says. The study also confirmed the long-held supposition that more food-safety mistakes are made when things are busier in the kitchen.