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Tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode of Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast. Join Francine L. Shaw, the savvy CEO of Savvy Food Safety, and Matthew Regusci, compliance connoisseur and founder of Fostering Compliance, as they serve up the latest in food safety with a side of laughter.
Explore the ins and outs of food systems, responsible food practices, and food safety regulations. Stay informed about food safety awareness and the not-so-occasional food recall. Delve deep into the complexities of the food supply chain with our dynamic duo, who blend expert insights with a pinch of food safety humor. Whether you're knee-deep in the food safety industry or just passionate about what's on your plate, this podcast promises a fresh take on staying safe while eating well.
Expect candid conversations, personal anecdotes, and occasional guest appearances that spice up the discussion. Shaw and Regusci bring their combined decades of experience to the table, making each episode as informative as it is entertaining. From industry trends to must-know food safety news and regulations, they've got your back (and your lunch).
In essence, Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast is not just about imparting information; it's about fostering a culture of food safety. By shedding light on the intricacies of the food supply chain and the latest food safety news, it aims to promote awareness and encourage responsible food practices among consumers and industry professionals alike.
When it comes to food safety, knowledge is power, and a good laugh is the best seasoning. At the heart of every episode is one golden rule: Don't Eat Poop!
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[00:00:00] Francine: I'm gonna guess it depends on the jurisdiction. In my particular case, you go back when you have the opportunity to go back. I understood that it was their business, their way of life, and how they earned a living. I typically went back as soon as I had an opportunity to go back. Sometimes it was at the end of the morning, and sometimes if it was real far away from where I was gonna end up and it was something easy, I didn't wait.
I went back as soon as I knew that they got it fixed. Now, the guy that I was walking away from, and he said, "She's a bitch on a power trip," he waited. But on the other side of that, I could have shut them down. They didn't get to open.
[00:00:46] Matt: Moral of the story is do not be a dick to your health inspector
[00:00:56] Intro: Everybody's gotta eat, and nobody likes getting sick. [00:01:00] That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points, from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine Elshaw and Matt Regusci for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule: don't eat poop Don't eat poop
[00:01:21] Matt: Hello, hello, Francine.
This is gonna be a fun one.
[00:01:25] Francine: It is, it is. Hey, before we start, I wanna say it'll... This is gonna air late, but happy birthday to you.
[00:01:31] Matt: Oh, well, thank you.
[00:01:32] Francine: To you, to my son, to my husband, to my granddaughter. It's a big month.
[00:01:38] Matt: It is a big month.
[00:01:40] Francine: Big month.
[00:01:41] Matt: Yes. Yeah. And you were, you were doing a lot of math.
[00:01:47] Francine: I was.
It's also my son and daughter-in-law's anniversary this month. I was doing math.
[00:01:51] Matt: It's interesting 'cause all of your family and I are about the same age.
[00:01:56] Francine: Yes, yes, yes.
[00:01:57] Matt: We keep you young, Francine. We keep [00:02:00] you young.
[00:02:00] Francine: You do. You do.
[00:02:02] Matt: And full of patience.
[00:02:04] Francine: Most of the time, yes. I really try.
[00:02:08] Matt: Yeah. I could just see-
[00:02:09] Francine: Why are you blushing and I'm not?
[00:02:11] Matt: Every single time I'm bringing up this, I, I, I walked readily on this conversation given the only time I've ever seen you really mad at me was when I said something and then you'd never let me down. So, I walked treadly on this conversation. Don't even joke. It was a joke. It's funny. Okay. Well, you had something that you wanted to talk about today, and this is your alley, and this is going to be very, very, very interesting.
[00:02:38] Francine: It is. I have a lot of curiosity. So the World Cup is coming up soon, and it appears that Atlanta is preparing for that with the health inspections.
[00:02:52] Matt: Yes. And- So the World Cup is starting in June.
[00:02:56] Francine: Oh, I thought it- It's June. Is it June?
[00:02:58] Matt: Yeah. So it start... It goes [00:03:00] from June 11th through July 19th. I
[00:03:03] Francine: should probably put my glasses on.
[00:03:06] Matt: This is, this is funny 'cause, okay, growing up in the States, I played soccer as a kid, but when the second I turned 10 years old, I started playing football and wrestling and all that stuff, and dropped soccer 'cause in the United States, when you're a kid... Well, it's changing now, but Pop Warner started, like, at 10 years old, and now I think it's still going.
But with concussions and stuff, I think it's different 'cause I think I had four concussions by the time I was 14 years old. That was just from football, not including concussions from wrestling.
[00:03:42] Francine: That explains so much.
[00:03:43] Matt: Doesn't it? Yeah. I mean, I was a lineman. I was a defensive lineman in, like, Pop Warner, stuff like that by...
And I was hitting or getting hit every single day, every single play. Every single play. And that was my job as a lineman. If you [00:04:00] hit wrong or you get hit wrong, some fullback running through the line, I made the tackle, but I don't know who was hitting who, right? Some fullback running- 12 yards straight at me while I'm in the hole.
I- did I block the hole? Yes. Did I get completely railed? Absolutely. Was football more fun than soccer? I would say yes, but I would say yes because of the culture in the States. My family was all about football. My friends' families were all about football. And so growing up, I never understood soccer. Even through all my, all my businesses, I was a minority and all my managers, my partners, et cetera, were all from Europe or from Latin America, and trying to...
I would just have to shut the office down and just tell people, "W- we're not..." This is the only [00:05:00] time we didn't answer our phone. This, and Christmas, and New Year's. Even on New Year's, we would answer our phones. Even Christmas sometimes I'd be emailing clients. But World Cup, when, if it was Brazil versus Mexico, or Chile versus Mexico, or Chile versus Brazil, there was nobody in the office.
I tried to keep the office open the first couple times, and then after that I was like, "Whatever. It's a holiday." People really love this, and I didn't get it until I watched Welcome to Wrexham and Ted Lasso. And then I started following Wrexham. I'm one of those Americans that followed Wrexham because of Ryan Reynolds.
Basically, if Ryan Reynolds creates something, I will watch it, and it's been that way since I was in high school. But I think British soccer is way more interesting because you can get these underdogs, and Americans are all about underdogs. 'Cause you can get these underdog teams moving up the different tiers of [00:06:00] soccer, it's really fascinating.
So then I started following that. My kids follow soccer, so that changed the culture of our household where we can watch it. But I didn't really understand the World Cup, but it's huge.
[00:06:12] Francine: Oh, I know it is. Probably the only time I ever watch soccer are the final games of the World Cup I like to, to watch.
It's like horse racing. I love to watch the Kentucky Derby and the-
[00:06:26] Matt: Do you like the Kentucky Derby, like the actual horse racing, or do you like watching for the outfits?
[00:06:31] Francine: Well, I, I like the hats, but I love to watch a race. I don't like to see them, not to see them hit the horses, but I do like to watch the race.
[00:06:40] Matt: Okay. So this, this is going to be huge for Atlanta because can you guess how many people are gonna be coming to Atlanta?
[00:06:51] Francine: I don't have any earthly idea how many people are gonna descend upon Fulton County, Georgia [00:07:00]
[00:07:00] Matt: Between five to six and a half million people are projected to attend matches inside the stadium.
This is expected to shatter the all-time tournament record of 3.6 million spectators in 1994. So twice as many people are going to be attending this.
[00:07:21] Francine: How is Atlanta going to handle that? Transit Lodging
[00:07:27] Matt: So get this, that's just the people who are attending the matches. Okay? There are up to 10 million total visitors are expected to travel into the host cities to participate in the festivities.
So every bar, when I was drinking, I would go to bars and watch football games all the time, because the atmosphere of that is just different when you go to a bar, a sports bar, and watch a game. Those bars are gonna be packed solid full of people. [00:08:00] Yes, and 1.25 million international fans are gonna be coming to the United States.
The airport alone... Okay, if, and nobody has flown through Atlanta Airport, Atlanta Airport on its own is hell. You and I have flown through multiple different airports, and LAX is just confusing, but once you learn LAX, it's not that bad. Unless you're trying to fly in domestically and then do international, and you have to, like, go across the parking lot into a brand-new terminal.
That sucks. Atlanta Airport is insane.
[00:08:38] Francine: It's not where you wanna go to learn how to navigate an airport. Like, if you've never navigated an airport, Atlanta is not the place to figure it out.
[00:08:48] Matt: On a normal day.
[00:08:49] Francine: Especially if TSA's not up to par on that day. Let's hope they've got that figured out by then.
[00:08:57] Matt: So I have advice for all of our listeners.
If you [00:09:00] happen to do a layover and Atlanta is one of the choices for the layover, I would just bypass that over the next-
[00:09:08] Francine: Even if you have to go to Chicago.
[00:09:09] Matt: Yeah. If
you go to Chicago, Houston, Dulles. Washington, DC, will be easier to navigate than this.
[00:09:16] Francine: Just the sheer volume of people they put through that airport on a daily basis is just unbelievable.
[00:09:24] Matt: Yes. Okay. Well, our audience has to be very curious, because we are not a sports show. We are a food safety show.
Francine sent this article over from NTBS News, and the details will be in the description below, that Atlanta health inspectors are preparing restaurants and vendors for the World Cup crowd. What? Crowd is an understatement. This is a mob.
[00:09:50] Francine: Right. The volume of people is one thing. Preparing and doing these inspections on top of their regular workload, [00:10:00] because they've-
[00:10:01] Matt: Yeah, I think the regular workload is out of the question.
This is- this is- Well,
[00:10:05] Francine: but they still have to do those inspections. They're still responsible for the regular workload. It's not like, oh, well, we can forget about the regular workload. All we're gonna do is the temporary vendors this year. That's not how it works Typically, that's not how it works. So now they've got to inspect all these temporary vendors that are gonna come in to be permitted for the World Cup.
[00:10:32] Matt: Yes. Okay, so and what Francine is saying about temporary vendors is they, in this article, they're talking to the main health inspector, Letwich. He said that every single vendor, so every restaurant, bar, food truck, tent, et cetera, has to have an inspection, be registered and have an inspection prior to the World Cup happening, and that's a [00:11:00] month long.
This event is a month long. And just alone, so Francine and I did the math. In Atlanta, just Atlanta right now, there are 6,000 facilities serving food, okay? So 6,000. That's not including all of these food trucks that are gonna be coming, food tents that are gonna pop up, all of that stuff that- that's gonna happen.
So you probably know this answer. What... Okay, if there's 6,000 right now permanent Atlanta vendors, how much do you think that will increase for the World Cup?
[00:11:41] Francine: I don't know. The- the World Cup's unprecedented as far as how many temporary vendors that might bring in. I don't think it said that in the article how many temporary vendors it was gonna bring in.
Yeah. Even if it only increased it by 10% That's 600 [00:12:00]
[00:12:00] Matt: Yes. God, I- it's gotta be more than 10%
[00:12:04] Francine: That's six- that's 600. But I agree with you. I would think it would be more than 10%. How many inspectors were there?
[00:12:14] Matt: 30. 28 inspectors. 28 inspectors. So we did the math. If every single health inspector were to do one inspection every single day in Atlanta in a normal time, they would be doing an inspection 241 days out of the year.
So if you divide 28 by 6,000, it comes out to be, sorry, 245 basically. If they were to be making sure everybody is inspected and all the food trucks are inspected. Okay, New Jersey, New York, here's something to look towards. New Jersey, New York, La Plaza de Fútbol activation, the American dream. They [00:13:00] had registered 1,000 local businesses and vendors to showcase products during the traveling crowd, a 39-day span.
So that would be a similar type of a thing. So let's say there's 1,000 extra food vendors that are coming
[00:13:19] Francine: to-
[00:13:19] Matt: For
[00:13:19] Francine: three days, or not even
[00:13:22] Matt: Yeah. That need to be registered and inspected
[00:13:25] Francine: And this is the thing, if you inspect them the first time and they don't pass, they don't have everything they need, you have to go back and re-inspect them
[00:13:34] Matt: Right.
And how are you gonna inspect them if they're traveling? Do they have to come in a month in advance and, like, get this done? 'Cause okay, of the 28 inspectors, if there are 1,000 more that need to be inspected, that's 28 divided by 1,000 comes out to be 36. So- So they have 36 inspections that they need to do.
If they were to quit [00:14:00] doing any other inspections for any other place and just focus on, say, the people coming in for the show, feeding all these people over the next month, and then heading out, that's 36 inspections per inspector over the next few weeks.
[00:14:15] Francine: So when I was handling events like that, oftentimes it was like a, say, a two, one or two-day event.
They would bring their trucks in or their stands in the morning, and if there were 50 stands, I would have to do all of those in the morning before they could open and feed people that particular day.
[00:14:35] Matt: How did you do 50 of them?
[00:14:36] Francine: And if they didn't, I would get there very early in the morning. Now, keep in mind, it's not like a full service restaurant, so it doesn't take quite as long for most of them.
But let's say they didn't have water or they didn't have gloves. I would then have to go back after they went to a restaurant supply store or to another truck and re-inspect to allow them to open. [00:15:00]
[00:15:00] Matt: Oh my gosh. I just thought about this. Every Costco, restaurant supply store, et cetera, et cetera, is gonna be empty in Atlanta during this time.
It's gonna be like a hurricane was coming or a tornado, and it's gonna be gone. Oh, man I'm glad they're doing this They have a plan. They're saying, like, "If you don't pass, you don't get to feed people." 'Cause this is Atlanta in the summertime. Atlanta's hot. Yeah.
[00:15:32] Francine: And all of these probably aren't selling high-risk items
[00:15:36] Matt: No, but a lot of them probably are.
[00:15:38] Francine: Well, um-
[00:15:39] Matt: Like barbecue, I bet there's gonna be a whole bunch of barbecue stands, a whole bunch of taco stands, a whole bunch of-
[00:15:45] Francine: Right ...
[00:15:45] Matt: any type of food you could possibly think of around the world is gonna be here.
[00:15:50] Francine: Very few are just gonna sell cans of soda.
[00:15:51] Matt: Mind you, they're gonna sell a ton of bottles of water and soda.
[00:15:57] Francine: For $10 a bottle.
[00:15:58] Matt: Yes.
[00:15:59] Francine: I think we should go [00:16:00] down and sell bottles of water.
[00:16:01] Matt: God, but can you imagine 10 million people and there'd be, like, a norovirus outbreak?
[00:16:06] Francine: Or an E. coli outbreak.
[00:16:09] Matt: Yeah, E. coli would be really bad, too, but I'm just thinking norovirus, just how much that spreads. 'Cause E. coli, you can... If you have a few food trucks that give people E.
coli, that won't spread as fast as norovirus.
[00:16:22] Francine: Right. Right.
[00:16:24] Matt: Oh, man. And then somebody gets norovirus from a food truck and then goes to a bar, gets the waitress, waitresses and waiters sick, bartenders sick. Their owners saying... And you talked about this in your talk at Food Safety Summit on norovirus last week.
The managers there go, like, "Oh, my gosh, everybody's sick. You just have to show up. We have 10 million people in Atlanta. We gotta serve these people." And then, then those wait- I, I could totally see that. Can't you see that scenario happening?
[00:16:57] Francine: 100%. And then that person [00:17:00] leaves, goes to the Atlanta airport- ... gets on a plane, and flies home through another airport, let's say Chicago, second busiest airport, I believe, O'Hare.
Oh, man. Think
[00:17:15] Matt: how
[00:17:15] Francine: many people could get sick.
[00:17:17] Matt: The mail.
[00:17:18] Francine: And, and it's not just one person from there that would be sick because of the way it spreads, and they infected, they have already infected everybody in the bar who are probably traveling to God knows where. Oh, my God. Hypothetically speaking, that could be a disaster
[00:17:36] Matt: Yeah
[00:17:37] Francine: The city of Atlanta is not gonna be happy with us, right?
For our hypothetical conversation.
[00:17:43] Matt: It's a hypothetical conversation, but it's based in reality.
[00:17:47] Francine: And this is exactly, this is exactly what I talked about, what the whole group talked about. We talked about norovirus in retail as the conversation, and how easily it spreads.
[00:17:58] Matt: Right. So [00:18:00] CBS News Atlanta met food inspector Harris at a popular local brunch.
Harris went straight to work auditing food-holding zones, checking the temperatures of the hot food, the cold food, the fresh produce stored in the back of the cooler. Beyond temperatures, Harris also examined hygiene and overall kitchen sanitation practices to make sure the health standards are being met.
Once the walkthrough was complete, any official notes and recommendations were recorded directly into the restaurant's permanent file and discussed immediately with the owner on duty Yeah, which is normal health inspector stuff. That's what you did all the time. This is the interesting thing, is the temperature control, okay?
So like if there's tents, we all go to a public event and you see tents popping up. Well, those tents don't have plug-in refrigerators a lot of times. They're coolers.
[00:18:50] Francine: Right. They're little coolers, and God only knows if they're even restaurant-quality coolers.
[00:18:56] Matt: And then this is Atlanta. It's gonna be like 100 degrees [00:19:00] and 80% humidity, and it's, it's gonna be hot.
The amount of ice that is going to be sold is going to be monumental.
[00:19:11] Francine: I wanna, uh, step back for a second. How many of those tents or facilities do you think have norovirus cleanup procedures?
[00:19:18] Matt: I don't even think they could spell norovirus cleanup procedures.
[00:19:21] Francine: Maybe I should take little Noro Man stickers down there and...
Okay, let's get back to temperature control. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, those coolers, ice, Atlanta's gonna run out of ice.
[00:19:34] Matt: Atlanta's gonna run out of ice.
[00:19:35] Francine: Just the amount of organization and facilitating that it would take to prepare and put this together.
[00:19:45] Matt: Well, and here's the other thing, too. Okay, so you and I are both entrepreneur-minded.
When I see things like this, I don't think, "Oh, I'm going to be one of those restaurateurs cooking food." No, no, [00:20:00] no. I always think, "What are all the services and ancillary things that are gonna be needed?" One of the phrases I use all the time is when there's a gold rush, sell the shovels, not go digging for gold, right?
Make the jeans. Levi's today is Levi's because they were making clothes for the miners many years ago. They learned how to put a rivet in jean material so that it didn't rip, and then that became the thing and blew them out of the water. People who made millions of dollars back at the gold rush were selling shovels and pans and that type of stuff.
So I could see, like, if I was an ice truck delivery person and I had ice trucks in Houston, I would be bringing my ice trucks to Atlanta. I'd be selling a lot of ice. Are they checking the ice trucks? Are they checking the other services that are selling to these places? I would be going to the terminal market in Atlanta [00:21:00] that's selling produce and all that stuff and making sure there's no rats there because that could definitely be a source of the outbreak is, is this, the terminal markets.
[00:21:10] Francine: How many people are gonna roll in there without food thermometers?
[00:21:13] Matt: Or how many of those food thermometers are gonna break? If you're checking temperature all day long every single day for 30 days- 40 days.
[00:21:25] Francine: And- Yeah ... if somebody calls the health department and complains about something, they have to go inspect.
[00:21:31] Matt: Right. Boy, these health inspectors, man, I-
[00:21:36] Francine: God bless them ...
[00:21:37] Matt: God bless them. This is gonna be the biggest workload of their life. If they were bored before, they are not going to be bored during
[00:21:47] Francine: this. Oh, I don't think they were bored before. There isn't a health inspector out there that's bored. They're so short-staffed.
There is not a health inspector out there that's bored.
[00:21:55] Matt: Yeah.
[00:21:55] Francine: Steve Mandrak right now is thinking, "Matt, what are you talking about? Health [00:22:00] inspectors that are bored?" No. Every health inspector that listens to us is thinking that right now. They're not bored. No. Most offices are short-staffed.
[00:22:09] Matt: That is true. I mean, we talk to them.
They're crazy busy. Correct. Those people don't make enough money. No, they don't. It is... People who do that job, a lot of times, the people that we talk to that do that job, do that job because they really believe in that. And so I'm just curious, and I don't know how when you got that, how we would get the data, but it would be fascinating to see the data.
How many of these 6,000 restaurants and bars that are permanently located in Atlanta, and food trucks that are permanently Atlanta, located in Atlanta, versus how many of the temporary food trucks and tents that are gonna pop, pop up. What is the percentage of those that get A grade versus those that get B and then, "No, you're not gonna be able to serve"?
That would be a fascinating percentage to see what these... Are [00:23:00] these health inspectors rubber-stamping just because they just, their workload is going to be insane? Or are they really going in there going-
[00:23:08] Francine: Food warmer ... "
[00:23:08] Matt: No, you're not selling today, bro."
[00:23:09] Francine: Or do they just reach their limit, and it's like, "Look, I don't have time to deal with this.
Call me when you get it fixed 'Cause it could go either way.
[00:23:19] Matt: Right. That, that, that is true.
[00:23:21] Francine: But then again, we know what the situation is as far as some health departments worry about the legality of that. Just saying, "Look, you, you can't operate."
[00:23:31] Matt: I think at this point, though, there's a big difference between shutting down a restaurant that's been around for multiple generations versus...
You tell stories all the time. Multiple generations, this is the restaurant, all the city council people went to this restaurant, and then you shut it down, and yeah, there's potential political ramification for that, right? But like a temporary food truck coming in from a different county, a different state, people popping [00:24:00] up food, I'm, I don't think they're, I don't think they're worried- I have
[00:24:02] Francine: no water in this truck, and you can't wash your hands, and you're dealing with raw meat, and I'm sorry, but you're not opening.
[00:24:10] Matt: Yeah. I could to- like, I could see you-
[00:24:13] Francine: You're not getting a permit. Not happening today.
[00:24:17] Matt: I mean, you are tough with p- the, the restaurants that have been around forever. I could see you having zero flipping patience for somebody who just comes into the county and wants to sell, and then you're like, "No.
We're not gonna let you kill our people. Go."
[00:24:29] Francine: I'm not being responsible for this, no. Sorry. No water, gloves. What are you thinking?
[00:24:37] Matt: No, I don't care if you have the best empanadas in Tampa. You're gonna kill somebody here. That's a really good point, though, that you said just how many of them are just gonna even get registered.
But that would be an interesting statistic because they submit theoretically, if they're doing this legally, that's the big air quotes, if they're doing this legally, they have to submit for registration so the [00:25:00] health inspector can go and check them out. So that would be an interesting data point, how many actually submitted versus how many were told, "No, go back to your...
Go back home,"
[00:25:09] Francine: or, "Go back to- Let's start back at square one, because you don't have everything you need here. There are some things you might be able to overlook which aren't gonna create that big of a deal, and then there are other things that it's just, "No, I'm sorry." Sorry. To that
[00:25:27] Matt: So here's some of the questions.
This is theoretically. There's 1,000 temporary trucks and tents that pop up or restaurants that are local that are gonna create, that are gonna open up tents. If they don't pass, they don't pass, do they go end of queue? Or because they were head of other people, then you would come back and check them the next day?
What, what does that look like in practice?
[00:25:54] Francine: I'm gonna guess it depends on the jurisdiction. In my particular case, you [00:26:00] go back when you have the opportunity to go back. I understood that it was their business, their way of life, and how they earned a living. I typically went back as soon as I had an opportunity to go back Sometimes it was at the end of the morning, and sometimes if it was real far away from where I was gonna end up and it was something easy, I didn't wait.
I went back as soon as I knew that they got it fixed. Now, the guy that I was walking away from, and he said, "She's a bitch on a power trip," he waited. But on the other side of that, I could have shut them down. They didn't get to open.
[00:26:40] Matt: Moral of the story is do not be a dick to your health inspector.
[00:26:44] Francine: As I was walking away from the stand, and one of the people were like, "She's a bitch on a power trip," I just simply said to the guy, "Like, you do understand that you might want to let him know that you could be not operating for the rest of the day.
But I am [00:27:00] gonna come back and let you open. Make sure he knows that before I get back."
[00:27:05] Matt: You know what, though? That... Okay, so 26 health inspectors, 6,000 permanent restaurants, 1,000-plus pop-ups. I'm guessing their patience for BS is going to be at below zilch.
[00:27:22] Francine: By the time they're nearing finished, I would say so.
[00:27:27] Matt: So if you are one of these vendors, which I doubt you are listening to this show, but let's say you are one of these vendors. If you are listening to this show, you probably have nothing to worry about. But if the health inspector does happen to find something, because, "Oh, whoops, we forgot to get gloves," or, "Gloves didn't come in," or blah, blah, blah, "We don't have it.
We're telling
[00:27:47] Francine: the health inspector- "We don't have any water. We don't have any soap. We don't have any gloves, and I'm sitting there smoking a cigar." You might want to, you know.
[00:27:55] Matt: You might want to be nice to the health inspector and be like, "Whoops. We are gonna fix that right now. [00:28:00] Can you go do your, the rest of the thing while we hook everything up?
Go get gloves. Hey, Junior, go to, go to Costco and grab some gloves real quick."
[00:28:08] Francine: Or the restaurant supply store would be great, but yeah.
[00:28:11] Matt: Yeah. Assuming the restaurant supply store has gloves.
[00:28:14] Francine: And they're open, yeah, because they may be running out of things.
[00:28:17] Matt: Yeah. Go to the local grocery store, grab some gloves, and be back.
[00:28:22] Francine: Anybody that's listening to this, know that your local grocery store and Costco aren't an approved supplier. I'm just throwing that out there, but-
[00:28:29] Matt: Okay, but if you're a temporary... Okay, so if you're a temporary pop-up place-
[00:28:33] Francine: If you're in a crunch, it's better than nothing.
[00:28:36] Matt: Right.
[00:28:36] Francine: It's better than nothing, so for these types of things, but-
[00:28:42] Matt: Okay, so on the- You're not-
SOPs, though, you could put Amazon as a supplier, couldn't you? Or Costco as a supplier.
[00:28:51] Francine: For what?
[00:28:53] Matt: For, like, gloves and soap and stuff like that.
[00:28:56] Francine: What's the traceability on that?
[00:28:58] Matt: You go to the store, [00:29:00] you pick up the gloves, and you come home. The traceability will be at Costco.
[00:29:07] Francine: Do you think Costco's gonna cover that if somebody gets sick?
Say the gloves were contaminated, do you think they're gonna cover that when the traceability when they left Costco from the time it got to your back door? Say you bought a bag of onions
[00:29:20] Matt: Yeah. That's what I'm thinking though, like- 100% not ... they're not really- Not
[00:29:23] Francine: in retail, no
[00:29:24] Matt: But they do-
[00:29:26] Francine: I'm telling you no
[00:29:27] Matt: Costco is a business. There's Costco restaurant
[00:29:30] Francine: Like delivering to the back door? Are they delivering to the back door?
[00:29:34] Matt: No. But I'm thinking a food truck. A food truck doesn't have delivery to the back door of their needs, do they?
[00:29:42] Francine: They deliver to the back doors of the restaurant. You sign it, and from the t- point of signature, it then is your responsibility.
That's where the chain, that's your chain of traceability.
[00:29:56] Matt: Got it. So with, like the health inspector [00:30:00] is gonna be looking that they're creating a vendor-type relationship with the restaurant-
[00:30:05] Francine: Is the health inspector- ... or- ... looking for that? In restaurants, the answer to that is yes. Are they looking for that in these food trucks?
Probably f- they should be for the food. Are they looking for that for the gloves and things? Probably not. But they, for the food, 100% they should be.
[00:30:26] Matt: Got it.
[00:30:27] Francine: Does it happen every day that people run to Sam's Club or Costco and get their things? 100% because they don't know any better. They don't know any better.
Should they be doing that? No.
[00:30:39] Matt: Yeah, that is interesting, 'cause the only... When I worked at restaurants, all the restaurants that we, that I worked at, including Starbucks, had dedicated relationships with vendors, whether that be Sysco, US Foods, whatever it was. So when I was managing my Starbucks, I [00:31:00] had places that I bought through with the portal, and it automatically set things up for them to deliver it.
[00:31:06] Francine: They were your approved vendors.
[00:31:07] Matt: They were my approved vendors. Now-
[00:31:09] Francine: And, and
[00:31:09] Matt: your- ... including all my goods, and my cups, my everything
[00:31:13] Francine: And the company, the parent company, was supposed to be going to those facilities, checking them, making sure that they have their HACCP plans and they were doing everything that they were supposed to be to earn that approved vendor status.
[00:31:27] Matt: Right. Which is really cool, 'cause later on in my career, I was able to, just a couple years ago, work with Starbucks on- a project for traceability, for compliance for FSMA 204. And it was really cool to see all the vendors that I used to buy from. I know they're clean
[00:31:48] Francine: So what if, what if I am a restaurant that sells potato salad, and let's say I go to the local grocery store and I buy potato salad, and then I go shopping.
I have a receipt for [00:32:00] that potato salad, but I let that pa- potato salad sit in the trunk of my car, and then I take it in and I sell it. But it was 100 degrees outside, and that potato salad sat in the trunk of my car for three hours. Now I take it into my restaurant and I sell it, and people start to get sick.
Are they gonna cover my losses and the illnesses from that potato salad? I guess not. No. Because again, there was no traceability. If they deliver it to the back door, you have more of an opportunity for that traceability.
[00:32:28] Matt: Yeah That's complicated, isn't it? So, okay, so all these-
[00:32:34] Francine: And this is retail life ...
[00:32:35] Matt: all these temporary food truck places, they need to have, depending upon the local regulations, stuff like that, if they're prepping food, like creating, say, birria tacos, that you're basically cooking meat for, like, 20 hours in a big pot with consommé, depending upon the regulations, you need to do that in a certified kitchen.
Mm-hmm. Where are [00:33:00] all those kitchens going to be?
[00:33:03] Francine: Some of them are cooking on their trucks.
[00:33:06] Matt: Yeah. That would be... Wow. Okay.
[00:33:10] Francine: We don't have time for that conversation right now.
[00:33:12] Matt: That is... You know what? That would be a whole nother episode that I think you and I need to do, which would be the food safety, all the implications of food safety on food trucks would be a fascinating thing.
[00:33:24] Francine: And where did they hold that? At what temperature did they hold it at? And how can we prove that? And do you have temperature logs for that?
[00:33:32] Matt: This is right up my alley, because I say all the time it's complicated. This is complicated.
[00:33:36] Francine: Well, you should've seen your face when I said the word traceability.
[00:33:39] Matt: I know.
I know, because it's-
[00:33:42] Francine: And I said traceability because you can relate to traceability.
[00:33:45] Matt: Yeah. And I think of the food... Like, restaurant makes sense. You have a relationship with Sysco, with US Foods, with some- with some local food distributor. You have a relationship with your... It- th- and they could be the ones providing you your plates and [00:34:00] napkins and all that different type of stuff, too, or you could be getting that directly from a restaurant supply store, which could be delivering directly to your place.
All these places deliver directly to you as a restaurateur. But, like, okay, terminal markets, for instance, in my world, in the produce and the- the supply chain world, terminal markets exist for restaurants to go pick up produce at 3:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning to go back to their restaurants. I've seen people, and you have all different types of restaurateurs doing this.
You have some with, like, a- an actual cool truck that are going and delivering to all their family restaurants. They may have, like, a dozen of them, and they'll pick it up at the terminal market, and then they'll deliver it to each of the individual restaurants. And I've seen people put it in the back of the truck of a car.
[00:34:48] Francine: Oh my God. So there are exceptions to every rule. If they have HACCP plans that have been re- approved by their health department for them to do these types of things, if they have h- HACCP plans or if they have [00:35:00] a written plan that's been approved by their health department, I don't know that putting it in the trunk of their car-
[00:35:06] Matt: Right.
I have... I don't think they tell their health inspector they put it in t- in the trunk of their car, but the health inspector isn't at the restaurant at 4:00 in the morning.
[00:35:14] Francine: This is why I did some health inspections at night.
[00:35:17] Matt: Yeah.
[00:35:18] Francine: I was probably the only health inspection they ever saw at night, health inspector they ever saw in the evening.
[00:35:22] Matt: 'Cause some of these- Literally I would go to, I would go do
[00:35:29] Francine: In the, in the bed of their truck that has never been washed, that probably had cow poop in it the night before.
[00:35:34] Matt: Yeah, and the terminal markets are like, "Whatever, you're the one picking up this and you're the one doing the risk."
[00:35:39] Francine: Soon as you sign for it, it's yours.
[00:35:41] Matt: Yeah. And I would see people buying stuff for their Chinese food restaurant, throwing it in the back of the car and going. And I'm like, "What's the cold chain like on this?" And they're like, "Well, it's not, it's not us." And I'm like, "Okay." But mind you, this was 20 years ago when food safety [00:36:00] was just starting, when I was going to these terminal markets and trying to get them ready for food safety.
It was, it was wild, wild west.
[00:36:07] Francine: We got way off track here, but where I live, they used to have gun drawings. You'd buy a ticket, and they'd raffle off from these tickets, guns. And you would go to this drawing then, and every out of so many tickets there'd be cash and there would be guns that you could win.
Now, while you were there, a meal was served. I don't know if they still do this or not. I haven't seen, I haven't seen anything like this in a long time. And usually it was a su- in the summer, and there would be lots of people there. So there would be kegs of beer. There would be somebody there cooking these massive steaks that were usually very good.
And there would be potato salad, macaroni salad, and it's all set up buffet style. Usually it's [00:37:00] super hot outside. Now, this food was typically brought in the back of somebody's pickup truck.
[00:37:06] Matt: I just laugh at the differences between... You and I both grew up in the country, but I grew up in the country of California, where the coast of California.
My family were farmers, but we were surrounded by people that were not. We would never be able to have a gun raffle in the coast of California
[00:37:28] Francine: This was common, very common, all the time. We hunt. So it was very difficult. I'll never forget the first time I said this at a... When I was teaching a class, I'm telling them about this, and I said something about a gun raffle, the looks on their faces.
They never shot guns or rifles. You know, everybody hunts, and it was, it was a big thing. So now we're giving away guns and drinking alcohol, and-
[00:37:52] Matt: And eating meat from the back of somebody's truck
[00:37:55] Francine: And macaroni salad and potato salad. Yeah.
[00:37:58] Matt: Ah, it's so funny. [00:38:00] Wow. Okay. Well, if anybody listens to our show specifically for the rabbit hole and tangents, you're welcome.
So there you go. They're- Atlanta is- Atlanta's prepping. They're prepping for the food safety. I like the fact that there is an article in CBS that you found, Francine, that shows that they are at least trying to tackle this impossible task. There is no way that every single food truck and tent is going to be inspected.
There are going to be people that are going to illegally bring their trucks in and pop up their tents. It's just going to happen. The fact that they're trying to manage this, I'm impressed.
[00:38:46] Francine: I had people try to sneak in without permits regularly, and unless somebody told me they were there, I'm sure they It happened.
Yeah. Lamar Stewart is the guy's name that was [00:39:00] interviewed, and good for him on ex- you know, for explaining this and it's quite the task. He's- it's called Showcase Atlanta for the-
[00:39:07] Matt: We should give Atlanta a round of applause.
[00:39:09] Francine: Yes. It's certainly a massive undertaking that they're-
[00:39:14] Matt: And I wish you the best of luck.
[00:39:15] Francine: Yeah.
[00:39:16] Matt: Good luck.
[00:39:17] Francine: We should interview them after this is over.
[00:39:19] Matt: Yes, that would be fun. I wonder if we'll see them. We're gonna be at the AFTO Conference. Maybe there'll be somebody from Atlanta there. We should ask Steve. 'Cause this, like I am a good manager. There are a lot of things I'm not good at. I am a good manager.
I would look at this and I would be like, "Okay, this is going to be a challenge." I would've been thinking about this about 18 months before this happened. I'm sure they
[00:39:44] Francine: were. 18 years.
[00:39:45] Matt: I'm sure they were, too.
[00:39:46] Francine: For the last two years, I, I'd be like-
[00:39:48] Matt: But wait, like look at they got it, the health inspector factor, the-
[00:39:51] Francine: I'd be making lists and crossing things off and making more lists and
[00:39:56] Matt: And I would probably say to my team, like, "We are not going to be [00:40:00] 100% successful.
We're not. There's going to be... But here's how we... Here's contingencies that we need to think of. The illegal pop-up ones that, that don't register, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna handle that? What are we gonna do to shut these people down? How do we make sure they don't come back? Because if they're doing this illegally already, they're going to try to do it illegally again.
What do we do with the people that are trying to do this legally and fail? And then what do we do when they fail again? And then what do we do when they fail again?"
[00:40:28] Francine: Handle the re-inspections. What do we do with the people that don't have access to water? What do we do with the people that are just trying to slide through with all the scenarios of-
[00:40:37] Matt: That would be a fascinating interview.
That would be so, because you and I would interview him, him or her as like, "Okay, we are so thankful we are not in your position." This would be my definition of hell, trying to organize this knowing that somebody probably is going to get sick. You know what? It would be fun, but it [00:41:00] still would be hell.
Because where the hell part comes is going into this, somebody is going to get sick. Somebody is. Somebody's going to get norovirus. It's just impossible to have 10 million people land in a city and have all of these vendors, and that would be the hell part is knowing that something is going to fall through the cracks.
You cannot plan against something you cannot even foresee.
[00:41:25] Francine: So wait a minute. So we just talked about the pop-ups in the city of Atlanta. What about the stadium?
[00:41:30] Matt: Oh, I bet they have the, the stadium pretty locked down. I
[00:41:33] Francine: wonder who's inspecting the s- the stadium. Whoever has HACCP contacts. 'Cause that, that is probably not the City of Atlanta.
That pro- they have their own inspectors.
[00:41:42] Matt: It depends.
[00:41:43] Francine: Third-party. They probably have third-party coming in for that. Because they would fit, the stadium would fit within the Atlanta's regular rotation. But I wonder if they fall into the preliminary rotation or if they're having third-party come in and [00:42:00] inspect that prior to this.
[00:42:03] Matt: Yeah. 'Cause remember the story that Bill Marler shared about the stadium in Seattle, and the- they got shut down. All their food got shut down by- And then they called Bill, and Bill was like, "Yo, be humble. Get your stuff done right. I can come and do a training." And then call them back and then have him do this.
'Cause the last thing the stadium wants is a whole bunch of sick people.
[00:42:27] Francine: Well, and stadiums are a challenge. Any of those types of venues are a challenge. Airports, stadiums.
[00:42:33] Matt: We have not beaten this one to death, but, uh, we've definitely come up with a lot of different scenarios. We could probably do 14 episodes on this one scenario.
But on that note, specifically for noroviruses, don't eat poop