The Restaurant Inspection as a Tool to Improve Food Safety

Routine restaurant inspections are important tools in food safety. Evidence of their importance is demonstrated in studies of the public's expectation of frequent restaurant inspections and strict regulations that only allow restaurants to continue in operation after almost full compliance with food safety codes.;Although foodborne outbreaks occur relatively infrequently, each event triggers further erosion of public confidence in foodsafety. Routine restaurant inspections is of immeasurable value, if regulators deliver uniform and consistent communication regarding restaurants' food code compliance to the public and incorporate routine inspection results into a mechanism for predicting foodborne outbreaks. This research was conducted to examine three aspects of restaurant inspections where these objectives could be reached. These include analysis of the process to determine the effectiveness of restaurant inspections in capturing critical and minor violations; examination of methods of communicating results of the inspection to determine uniformity and consistency and analysis of the inspection to determine the predictability of restaurant inspections.;There are very few studies that examine the restaurant inspection process or the consistency and uniformity of computing inspection scores; however, there are studies that fall on both sides of the debate of whether the inspection is predictive of an outbreak. This research revealed that the inspection process was valid in its effectiveness in capturing critical and major violations; that uniformity and consistency in reporting inspection results using letter grades occurred in approximately 56% of the reports, however, uniformity and consistency could be increased to approximately 84% by standardizing the reports and that the ability of routine restaurant inspections to predict outbreaks will likely depend on the nature of outbreaks.;Keywords: routine restaurant inspection, standardized inspection reports, predict outbreak...