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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]
Monica Pancare: I was inspecting a grocery store that prepares their own baking, uh, croissants and cookies and a vertical baking oven that rotates, and the oven was warm, and I remember saying. Is there anything in here? And they said, yeah, we just finished baking cookies and I opened the door and there was a rat that was literally fried on the floor inside of that rotating vertical oven.
And I was so horrified because I wasn't expecting that. I've seen rodents in other aspect, and I'm comfortable around it, for lack of a better word, but I was not expecting that.
intro: Everybody's gotta eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the [00:01:00] supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine L Shaw 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.
Matt Regusci: Hello? Hello, Monica. Hi. How are you? Very good. We are at the Food Safety Consortium Conference, so if it's a little loud in the background, that's because there's a lot going on.
Monica, we were having a conversation with you at our booth and we were just fascinated with your story and we're like, okay, we have to interview you because you've been around food safety from literally the inception.
Monica Pancare: Well, I've been around, that's for sure.
Matt Regusci: So, Monica, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us like your full name and what it is that you do currently, and then we'll go into the history of what you've gone through.
Monica Pancare: Okay, thank you, Matt. I've been in this industry for many years.
My background is I [00:02:00] am a Culinary Institute of America grad as well as a Florida international grad and hotel restaurant management.
I've spent many years in all facets of culinary and the food service industry, which includes Marriott hotels, fast food chains, and currently I'm involved with the town of Needham, Massachusetts as an environmental health food inspector.
Matt Regusci: Awesome. So when did, you were saying you started in food in high school and then college.
You don't have to tell us like what the year was, but food safety was around, but it was very different back then than it is now, right?
Monica Pancare: Oh, totally. I started in a family business in the seventies. From there, I decided that I really wanted to go to culinary school to expand my horizon.
So we're talking from the seventies up till [00:03:00] now, and one of the most significant things is wearing of gloves. That would probably be one of the largest changes that I've seen. Back in the day just had to make sure your hands were clean, your nails were trimmed, and that you washed your hands frequently.
Francine L Shaw: I also started in the seventies. That's I got my first job in my family was in the business. I grew up in the business, but I got my first job in 1977.
I was young, but 1977. I can remember going out and jumping down the trash in the dumpsters. We physically got in the dumpster and jumped down the trash. Matt. No comment, but you had to smash it down so they could get less. Less Pickups. Pickups were expensive. So you got in that do. I was small, so they'd throw me in.
I jumped down the trash and they pulled me back out. Can you imagine the crut that was all over [00:04:00] our uniforms when they pulled us out of the dumpster?
So you mentioned ServSafe. Taking the ServSafe exam, like we took the first ServSafe exams that were out there, I'm sure, because when we first started ServSafe didn't exist.
So those, we sat through those classes for a couple days. I'd rather have my skin peeled off than sit through those classes with a bad trainer, and they weren't trained to be trainers at that point, so they'd read the book. Some of those are still out there, but those were the original food safety classes at that point, and the only food safety classes at that point.
You took those as well?
Monica Pancare: Oh, absolutely. I remember sitting through and there'd be a glaze coming over my eyes at some point when they talked about microbiology or whatever, and I'm like, oh my God, I don't know anything about this, but how times have changed. But yes, I also sat through many [00:05:00] classes of ServSafe.
Francine L Shaw: Well, yeah. At this point, yes. And we both have taught at this point because you said you were an instructor. Yes, I was certified at Point as an instructor at, yeah. And I was as well.
Matt Regusci: But So you're certified as instructor both with ServSafe and American Colony Culminate.
Monica Pancare: Right now I hold CPFS certified Professional Food Safety from Niha.
Matt Regusci: Got it. Got it. And so you were talking to us about how you went from working at Marriott in college, right. Working there full time, and then give us like a little bit of just how that career evolved over the time that you were there. And then what? Then, then you said you went and worked in the Marines, worked not as a Marine, but worked at the kitchens, and just, just give us the evolution of what you saw with food safety over those years.
Monica Pancare: A lot of changes for sure. I spent many [00:06:00] years with Marriott Hotels during college and then out of college, specifically in the food standards and safety training. And again, the most significant for me was hands and hand washing. 'cause the wearing of gloves just wasn't, it just wasn't on top of mind at that point.
As well as an example, today we have wiping cloths and buckets, and back in the day you used any, almost any cloth to hold your hot pads and handles and wipe things around. It just wasn't existent. Back in the early days, we had no clue. Of course, professional companies you want 'em to. They made sure that it was a clean cloth.
I think that was just a standard type of practice. But wiping cloths, the use of gloves, the different changes in cooking temperatures. We [00:07:00] always tested cooking temperatures of flu, but they've changed over the years and I think that's a significant thing. Thank God I worked for great companies and was trained well, is all I can say.
Francine L Shaw: I can remember myself. We didn't. You went to the CIA. You guys may have tested the temperature of food. We did not. When I first started, we weren't checking the temperatures at all. We didn't start checking temperatures until after Jack in the Box.
Monica Pancare: We were ingrained as far as chicken temperatures.
Francine L Shaw: Well, we didn't sell chicken.
Monica Pancare: Chicken. Ah,
Francine L Shaw: we didn't sell chicken.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, but you sold ham like hamburger.
Francine L Shaw: We did.
Matt Regusci: We did.
Francine L Shaw: But e coli hadn't happened yet.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. Yeah. E coli hadn't been caught yet.
Francine L Shaw: Well, yeah, as far as we knew, e coli hadn't happened yet.
Matt Regusci: That's awesome. That Marriott, 'cause I love [00:08:00] Marriott. I, that's the only hotel chain that I use.
My wife is like, we're Marriott people just go to Marriotts. But th thank you, because I didn't know that they were like literally pioneering food safety back in the eighties.
Monica Pancare: Absolutely. They had a QA team at their corporate headquarters, I'm sure they still do to this day. And there was a high emphasis with food safety, and I believe at the time they worked with various industry professionals such as Echo Lab I remember, and many other companies to ensure that it was part of our training as well as the training of staff, which I also assisted with at our corporate headquarters, the food standards team.
Francine L Shaw: So I've actually done corporate training for Marriott. Great. Yeah.
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Okay, so now you're a food inspector, a health inspector. How long have you been doing that for?
Monica Pancare: At least 20 years. Sometimes the years [00:09:00] get foggy, but I've been involved in food and some aspect of food safety pretty much my entire career.
I currently work for the town of Needham, Massachusetts, part-time. I've been with them almost seven years conducting food inspections at the local restaurants and other food service establishments.
Matt Regusci: What I love about food safety is you could have multiple careers, like where people think about working in some place for 20 years and retiring.
You've done that twice and you're still going. That's a, that's absolutely amazing. You just keep getting more and more knowledge, right. As you keep doing this, like every day, I assume you're seeing different ways of doing the same stuff.
Monica Pancare: Absolutely. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is key. I believe that you always need to keep your finger [00:10:00] on the pulse and really have a good, strong knowledge of what's out there in the industry as it changes because you can assist and help your small business operators that much more near and dear to my heart.
Matt Regusci: Okay, so you've worked for 20 years as a health inspector. What does that look like? What is an average day for you?
Monica Pancare: I don't know if there's such a thing. As an average day, I do unannounced inspections primarily. And on any given day, you never know what you're gonna find or what you're gonna in inspect. I look at higher risk first. I understand that if a floor is dirty, that they're in production or they're cooking, that's not as concerning to me unless I see three inches layer of grease and debris.
Francine L Shaw: I always said there's a difference between working dirt and filth.
Monica Pancare: I totally agree with that. [00:11:00] Filth is a big problem. You can tell as a food inspector, when you've done this many years, you can pretty much tell immediately whether they have a regular cleaning schedule or whether they don't, just by simply looking under the line and the cook lines and other aspects.
Other than that, I assume that the aisle between the prep area and the stoves are good there. That's gonna be cleaned or mopped for sure at the end of the shift or the end of the night.
Francine L Shaw: And you have a unique perspective. And I always felt that I did as well because you came from operations. Absolutely.
That benefits you as an inspector, don't you think? Because you know what it's, you know what it's like to work in operations and you also know the truth.
Monica Pancare: 100, 100% has a huge benefit, I believe, to the business owners and the chefs who I'm [00:12:00] involved with. It depends which way you, it's a huge benefit to me, and if we're really honest, it's a huge benefit to them because at the end of the day, I'm able to tell what is being made or what that product is.
I don't have to ask a ton of questions to understand the preparation of how that sauce or that particular dressing was made. So I do think I have a lot of credibility within the industry because of my restaurant and culinary and just operations background. I can walk the talk.
Matt Regusci: Okay, so you, you're doing a health inspection and that the restaurant has, well, first off, before we go into that, how do you define high risk and low risk?
Like when you said you do inspections and they're unannounced inspections and you're doing those inspections, first off, based upon risk, how are you defining that? [00:13:00] Is that defined already for you, or are you making that decision?
Monica Pancare: There's levels of risk within the food code. So what I say to people is, I don't know anyone that has ever died from eating off a dirty floor.
Matt Regusci: Okay, no, but have died. But when you choose a restaurant, what do you see as risk? Like high risk versus low risk?
Monica Pancare: Oh, some specific example you mean?
Matt Regusci: Yeah. What type of restaurant would be a high risk versus restaurant that would be low risk?
Monica Pancare: Well, obviously anything with a highly susceptible population, there's protocols in place for that.
As far as what you can prepare, what you can't prepare, cooking temperatures, so anything with nursing homes and hospitals assisted living, those are automatically at a much higher risk than say food that's simply being reheated such as at a seven 11 or something similar where it might be pizza and chicken.
Taking a frozen product that's fully cooked and [00:14:00] reheating it and serving it. So there's different levels of risk, obviously, any type of pest infestation look at very critically, as well as cooling, improper cooling and improper thawing, proper cooking temperatures, and then anything that may require a variance or a HACCP plan, such as the preparation of sushi rice, different aspects of reduced oxygen packaging. Other aspects to that, as well as using unpasteurized eggs in certain dressings. That's.
Matt Regusci: And so do you have that like data beforehand where you're able to like, here's all the restaurants that I have, here's all the stuff that that is going on within those restaurants, or they have a pest infestation or something like that.
Would you have that data beforehand or is that.
Monica Pancare: I have some of that data just through historically doing those inspections, but what I generally do, if I go into a new establishment and I see [00:15:00] certain dressings, some are commercially prepared. That's easy to tell. But when I read the menu and see, oh, the chef's special dressing, I automatically will ask, how is that prepared?
What are the ingredients in that? Can you tell me a little bit more what that's used for? And that's usually the big reveal. It's asking the right questions at the right point, and then using the knowledge that I have to either assess the compliance or the safety of that or get more information. There's many times it's not just black and white, cut and dry. Sometimes certain things just need more, I'll say investigation.
Francine L Shaw: It's funny, I'm sitting here smiling because I think in pictures I don't, not everybody's mind works that way, but I think in pictures. So as you're sitting here talking and you're talking about your high risk establishments, pictures are flying through my mind and I'm thinking [00:16:00] about the violations that I've seen as you're talking about your high risk establishments, and I'm literally seeing images fly through my head.
So yeah, tell me about what is the craziest violation that you've ever seen. Don't mention names or places.
Monica Pancare: I was one. There's several. But one of the things that comes to my mind is I was inspecting a grocery store that prepares their own baking, uh, croissants and cookies in a vertical baking oven that rotates and the oven was warm.
And I remember saying, is there anything in here? And they said, yeah, we just finished baking cookies. And I opened the door and there was a rat that was literally fried on the floor inside of that rotating vertical oven. I [00:17:00] was so horrified because I wasn't expecting that. I've seen rodents, in other aspect, and I'm comfortable around it, for lack of a better word, but I was not expecting that, and I opened the door and I must have jumped three feet back when I saw it.
But the crazier thing was that they had been moving food in and out of these racks all day and no one had seen it, and it was right in the front. I was more horrified that no one said, oh my God, look at what happened, or, look at what we have. They were oblivious. The staff was oblivious.
Matt Regusci: Okay, if the staff is oblivious, and how many times have they seen a rat?
In there like.
Monica Pancare: It was roasted back and cooked a rat. Yeah, it was roasted. All I know is I hope they cooked it to the right internal temperature.
Francine L Shaw: It's like, what is what, 1 65? What is the proper cooking temperature of a rat? I'm gonna get, I'm gonna say 1 65.
Matt Regusci: Oh gosh. Well, we're actually having this conversation.[00:18:00]
Francine L Shaw: See, this is why people like our podcast.
Matt Regusci: Okay, so, so Francine has a book and she talks about all the stories about a health in like those she went through. And as a health inspector can imagine, literally you're saying some of this. Same stuff that she's written down in there where there's like a whole story of her like going and finding rats and like figuring out where they're coming from and Oh my gosh.
So do you, you must see cockroaches too.
Monica Pancare: Yes. But there's all kinds of pests that are in food service establishments at the end of the day. Do I like to see them? No, but. It's hard. It's hard. You have to be very proactive.
Francine L Shaw: It just becomes part of your life. Exactly. Yeah. You know what I mean? It just becomes, it's part of the job so you become...
Matt Regusci: desensitized.
Francine L Shaw: Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You don't like 'em falling on your head and it doesn't happen every day that they're raining on your head, but [00:19:00] it's, you just, I don't wanna have another day like this for a while. You just become immune. I don't wanna say immune, but look at this.
Matt Regusci: You guys both said immune at the exact same time you took, could be your best friends.
This is hilarious.
Francine L Shaw: We're like people that have worked in the industry for a while. It's like, God, it really shouldn't be this way. And I would get angry that somebody allowed it to get this bad, but you can't exhibit that behavior, but internally you're dying. It just, and then you sometimes the people that are working there are a victim of their circumstances because it was totally outta that person's control.
As hard as that is to believe. But yeah, you do, you become desensitized to some of it.
Monica Pancare: Yeah. You have to go into it with an open eye. And really build up some [00:20:00] thicker skin because you never know.
Matt Regusci: Thick skin like a carapace.
Francine L Shaw: So has anybody ever threatened you? Have you ever been threatened?
Monica Pancare: I've been very fortunate there.
There has been maybe once or twice where I would say it was more of very highly confronted. This was a location where they were almost subject to closure. But at the end of the day, I've been very fortunate. People can say what they want, but I also have a thick skin and can pretty well stand up to myself.
I've never had to get law enforcement or anything involved.
Francine L Shaw: Yeah, I, yeah, I have a couple times because it was, I, I also can stand up for myself and I have very thick skin. When they start to get guns out.
Monica Pancare: That's a whole other level. That's a new level. But I know knives.[00:21:00]
Matt Regusci: And you had a butcher, don't you?
Francine L Shaw: That's right. They were in the kitchen. I was in the dining room. I actually got a permit to carry. Wow. Yeah. During that time. So it was. My husband's like, okay, enough's enough. Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy.
Matt Regusci: Okay, so the difference between working dirt and you could tell that they're cleaning between shifts or whatever.
It's just the kitchen is going full speed and filth. You were talking about the difference between that when you go into an establishment and you see that this place is filthy. They probably don't even know what a cleaning regiment is, let alone followed it. Like what do you do after that?
Monica Pancare: I generally will ask for all the people in charge.
We have what I call a little huddle, for lack of a better word, and, [00:22:00] and I'll ask what's going on and can you help me understand why this establishment is this way? 'cause I'm not happy right now and I have some serious concerns. So that usually sets the tone for what could be coming next, so to speak. And that could be anything from temporarily voluntarily shutting down to maybe clean some things up.
Or it could be even whole other level of an immediate closure with proper... going through the proper authorities.
Matt Regusci: And, and you missed this 'cause it's a podcast, but she said temporarily, voluntarily, and as she was saying voluntarily, she did air quotes. So this could be your decision to shut down and clean, or it might have to be my decision that you shut down and clean.
Monica Pancare: Many years ago I was working in a town and there was a [00:23:00] lot of concerns and issues, and I would say, I'm not real happy right now because of X, Y, and Z. Let's take a look at this together. 'cause I want people to see exactly what I'm seeing, period. So that there's no misconception of, oh no it wasn't. Oh no, it is like that.
But I would say I can either put my sign on the door. Or you can put your sign that you're on vacation, which one would you prefer to put?
Francine L Shaw: We, there's this misconception we don't go into restaurants looking for problems and wanting to shut them down is a lot of work.
Monica Pancare: Oh, absolutely. Uh, yeah, AB absolutely no.
The goal is a partnership. There's, it's a partnership. My best interests are in your best interest as the operator. We may agree to disagree at times, but generally it. It comes from lack of training, lack of awareness, or an absentee [00:24:00] owner. If the owners are not active participants as far as food safety and managerial control, then chances are the staff isn't either.
It depends. It depends on how large and it, it just depends.
Matt Regusci: Obviously the Marriott where you were at, it wasn't like the Marriott family was in every single place, but they had really good institutional management processes in order to get it done. So if it's an owner that has put the right processes in place for management, that's very different than just the owner of one restaurant that's just completely checked out, or the manager that's completely checked out.
There are no processes for food safety, et cetera.
Francine L Shaw: So, I can't remember if I heard you say this yesterday or if it was on Darin's podcast, 'cause I binge listened to that on the way down here. How do you feel about this statement that if the bathrooms are clean, the rest of the establishment is clean out?
And I will tell you how [00:25:00] I feel about it. Every restaurant owner out there knows that people are looking at the restrooms. They make sure the restrooms are clean. If they're a decent or smart owner. It means nothing.
Monica Pancare: I agree a hundred percent. I've gone into places where the kitchen has had numerous violations, yet you go out to the public restrooms and they're pristine with soap and paper towel.
And everything else that needs to be there. 'cause perception is reality, right? But then you go into the employee restrooms that might be in the back of the kitchen or down in the basement, and it's two other levels, different levels of, I'll say compliance, they may or may not be soap or paper towel, or it's just paper towel flowing over baskets.
So it all depends as well as just the organization of a kitchen, making sure food [00:26:00] is stored properly. Can a mistake happen once in a while? Sure. Where raw food is above ready to eat or cook food? Sure. Usually that's training. If it's just one little area and everything else is what it should be, so a mistake can happen.
That's just a fundamental training issue. But when throughout the entire walk-in and regions food is stored haphazardly and no labels or dates, and no one seems to care or know that the sauce expired three days ago, even though you have a label on it. Somewhere or another the knowledge, the change is broken.
People either don't care, they don't know they aren't trained and no one is following up and following through.
Francine L Shaw: And Monica, you can tell the difference between a mistake and procedure. What's procedural and what is training within the facility. When you walk in as a professional, you know [00:27:00] immediately what the culture is and whether it's training or procedural?
Monica Pancare: Yes, it's very easy. You can look at logs. I look at a lot of cooling logs and with different products. And if it's not cool to 70 degrees within two hours, if they're using the logs properly, they're putting the dates and the times, and I'll find mistakes and I'll go back a couple weeks or a month to see if it's a consistent mistake or is that just a one-off from lack of training or just culturally inverting a number, so to speak.
But there's time where I've said, okay, when was this meatloaf made? And I've gotten a cooler and we've tested it and it's been in the danger zone where the logs were not filled out properly. And, sorry, you hit the max there. We aren't serving this meatloaf tonight. I guess you have [00:28:00] to look at the details.
Matt Regusci: Monica, you okay? This is where I wish we have gotta get YouTube because you can't see Monica's face, but Monica is the way she's talking and. Is the exact same. Her face only changes a little bit between the, there's just things that happen like this and like this, and then there's this meatloaf is out of the danger zone that's not being served today.
It's like she's talking to her kids or her grandkids, and I can see why you're effective at what you do because like you're, you seem just like a pretty low key person and then you just kind of state the facts in the exact same way. The people there are like, I could just see them being like. Okay, yeah, this woman knows what she's doing and we need to fix this.
And I can see why you haven't been threatened before because you're just kinda like, this is the way it is, but like in your kind of low key just way of doing things.
Francine L Shaw: [00:29:00] So as a consumer, what do you look for when you walk in to a restaurant?
Monica Pancare: Outside of what I'll say, aggressive hospitality, how I'm greeted and those types of things, I look at.
First off, is my table clean? Is it set properly? 'cause that shows attention to detail. I'll look at the menu, depending what I'm gonna order. I wanna know whether the food is fresh, whether it might commercially made type of sauce. I really look at the quality of the ingredients and the preparation. I think every food person, they always look at everyone else's food as it goes by just to see what it looks like and look at presentation.
And then the other aspect is, huh, I wonder if they can prepare this not only in a quality environment, but is [00:30:00] it safe? If the chef comes out and their uniform is soiled or anything else, that's a huge red flag for me because as a professional, you can wear an apron, it's okay, but if you have food all over your chef coat that usually tells me that the rest of the kitchen or the staff may not be as conscientious in food preparation and food safety as what they should be, or excessively long, having fingernails and all kinds of jewelry, and I'm sorry, there's standards that need to be met and I'm not really, I'll say a picky eater. I pretty much eat everything.
So, and I'm also, I guess, conditioned that if by now certain foods haven't killed me, then you know, I think I've just been built up an immunity to certain things anyway.
Matt Regusci: [00:31:00] Oh my gosh, this was so much fun. Thank you so much, Monica, for joining us on our podcast.
Francine L Shaw: It was a pleasure to speak to somebody else that comes from retail because a lot I enjoy, I've worked in all aspects, so I enjoy speaking to everybody that we talk to, but we don't speak to a lot of people from my world, so this has been great.
Thank you for talking about.
Matt Regusci: And, and before you go, we ask everybody at the Food Safety Consortium. You come to a conference a year, you said? What made you choose Food Safety Consortium and have you been here before?
Monica Pancare: I know this is my first time here. I generally attend some aspect of food safety conference throughout the year.
I wanted to come here today to really expand my knowledge on the commercial product manufacturing aspect of how food is made in a commercial setting. So I came here to expand my knowledge, and again, knowledge is power and to [00:32:00] meet and see other people and look at the different types of equipment, the x-ray detection or again, for foreign materials, the class we had yesterday was fantastic and I'm looking forward to more today.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, awesome. We love this conference for a lot of reasons. The networking here is absolutely amazing. Just getting a chance to talk to you I the this, yeah. We think this is one of the best networking conferences and the classes and stuff like that.
The talks here are amazing as well, so. Well, hopefully, so this is conference, just this what the first day of the main conference. So hopefully it continues to be good. And I don't die.
Monica Pancare: I hope not. Thank you Matt. Thank you, Francine.
Matt Regusci: Alright, so Monica, don't eat poop.