Restaurants to inspect themselves

Concerned about the limited number of state health inspectors, the Rhode Island Hospitality and Tourism Association is launching a voluntary self-inspection program for food-service establishments throughout the state.
The program, which is being developed with the R.I. Department of Health and is expected to be launched this summer, will train restaurant owners and chefs to conduct in-house inspections to help them stay in compliance with health regulations even in the absence of regular state inspections.
“We’re going to step to the plate and be more proactive,” said Dale J. Venturini, president and CEO of the association. “Most good restaurateurs understand what they need to do. We just want to formalize the program to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks.”
The Health Department has seven field inspectors for the 7,000 to 8,000 licensed food-service establishments that exist in Rhode Island at any given time, said Thomas Nerney, a compliance evaluation and standardization officer in the Office of Food Protection.
The department also has three senior inspectors who primarily focus on more complex investigations, he said.
Besides overseeing every restaurant in the state, state health inspectors also are responsible for regulating supermarkets, food processing businesses, schools, nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and dairy farms, Nerney said.
The inspectors give priority to establishments with a record of violations and to the subjects of the 800 to 1,000 complaints they receive each year, he said. But because of the limited manpower – and because Rhode Island has no municipal health departments that conduct their own inspections, unlike most other states – restaurants can go years without a routine health inspection, Nerney said.
Given that situation, it is in the hospitality industry’s interest to better police itself, because restaurants and other businesses statewide would suffer in the event of an outbreak of food-borne illness or a rash of health violations, Venturini said.
Just the fact that the Health Department is so short-staffed could feed a negative perception of the state’s hospitality industry, she said, despite the fact that the vast majority of eating establishments in the state abide by safety regulations.
“You know, we get painted with a broad brush,” she said. “It is a reality. That is a fact we are dealing with, so what we want to do is overcome that. We have no control on the other side, but we certainly have control over our own industry.”
The Hospitality Association is organizing a series of self-inspection seminars this spring that will be taught by the Department of Health, including one tentatively scheduled for April 24 that will be held in the R.I. Convention Center’s main kitchen.
Nerney, who will teach the classes, said the program would complement a state law that requires all food-serving establishments to have at least one licensed food safety manager.
“Obviously we’re excited” about the initiative, Nerney said, “and we’re going to do everything we can to help them put together a program that works for everybody.”
The hope is to make more food establishments operate like the Newport Restaurant Group, a division of Newport Harbor Corp., which has a self-inspection program at its six restaurants that mirrors state health inspections and impacts the performance incentives for general managers and chefs.
In addition to quarterly self-inspections, once a year the company brings in a consultant who evaluates compliance with food safety procedures at each restaurant, said Ken Cusson, director of restaurant operations for the Newport Restaurant Group.
Cusson said when a restaurant applies for a new license or for a change to a license, a state inspector always conducts a thorough inspection. But otherwise, he said, years can pass without a visit.
“They’re underfunded and understaffed, and so unless we’re doing some type of major change or we call them and ask them to come down, you don’t see health inspectors very often,” he said.
Venturini said the self-inspection initiative is the first example of a comprehensive effort planned by the Hospitality Association to educate its members and the public about issues emerging in the nation’s food-service industry that are often beyond the control of local restaurants.
The group is also closely monitoring a national effort by the industry to establish guidelines for produce growers in California to prevent national food recalls such as the one after last year’s problem with tainted spinach, which caused illness in several states.
“We have to be part of the solution on a national basis,” Venturini said. “If there’s a food-borne outbreak, it doesn’t matter where it is, people get nervous.”