Food safety is becoming an increasingly important public health issue. As data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show, even in industrialised countries the percentage of the population suffering from foodborne diseases each year is of the order of 30%. Thus, in Europe, approximately 80 million cases are reported annually. With a typical hospitalisation rate of approximately 0.5 %, this means that several hundred thousands of European citizens will be admitted to hospital, and of these, several hundreds or even thousands will die. The vast majority of all cases of food-borne diseases are, of course, due to microbiological contamination, particularly salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis,
enterohaemorrhagic E.coli infections
and listeriosis.  

Given the size of the problem, it is not surprising that the food safety authorities, from the EFSA at the European level through organisations in individual European countries right down to municipal inspection teams are active in defining norms and specifying and applying appropriate preventative and testing regimes.  A complicating factor is the fact that the food production chain has become more complex, providing greater opportunities for contamination and growth of pathogens. Many outbreaks of foodborne diseases that were once contained within a small community may now take on much larger dimensions.

All bona fide companies in the food production sector are playing their part in minimising risks of outbreaks, and taking huge precautions regarding the safety of their products, if only because of the dire consequences that a major safety incident would have, from a loss of corporate reputation to the direct cost of product recalls.
In the light of all this effort, it is particularly frustrating for the food industry as a whole that a frightening proportion of all food-borne infections actually occur at one of the main points of consumption, namely restaurants. It is estimated that no fewer than 70 % (!) of the WHO’s annual 80 million cases of food-borne diseases in Europe are related to infections caused by poor hygiene in
restaurants or fast-food outlets.

All public health authorities inspect restaurants and have even the power to close down offending establishments. Now, with the growth of the general public’s on-line/Internet mind-set, there is an increasing move that the results of such inspections be made available to the public. In several US cities, such reports can be, and are, routinely consulted on-line by the public. Intuitively it seems clear that once it is known which restaurants have a poor hygiene record, they are likely to have the most effective sanction of all applied — a loss of business. However the lack of spontaneity involved, for example in a decision to dine out at a restaurant being preceded by a quick check on the Internet to check hygiene reports, is a limiting factor, hence the idea to have a mandatory display system at the restaurant itself. Already a pilot scheme in Los Angeles, where each restaurant is obliged to show its hygiene rating (which ranges from a warning of violations of basic hygiene rules through to being a potential public health hazard) is reported to have resulted in an immediate reduction by 20% of all food-related illnesses. These results seem so encouraging that it is disappointing that efforts to establish such systems in Europe are being watered down by the relevant food authority. In Wales, where in the past there have been tragic deaths from restaurant food contamination, the UK FSA only recommends that restaurants post their inspection status rather than making it obligatory. It’s time for a mandatory Michelin star system to be applied to food hygiene in restaurants.