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The Food Safety Tool Box

An Effective Practice

This practice has been Archived and is no longer maintained.

Description

The Food Safety Tool Box is a program of the Columbus Health Department that provides food safety information in English, Chinese, Somali, and Spanish to address the growing need for multilingual food safety information. As a local public health agency, Columbus desired to become proactive rather than reactive in its approach to ensuring safe food for the community. It was the vision of CHD to provide each newly licensed retail food facility with the proper food safety tools within the first 30 days of opening for business. In 2001, the Food Safety Tool Box was developed as a proactive tool, which enabled the vision to become a reality.

Goal / Mission

The goal of this program is to reduce the risk of foodborne illness outbreaks by educating licensed operators and food employees of proper food safety procedures.

Results / Accomplishments

Columbus Health Department (CHD) was able to reach 100% of its target audience of licensed retail food facilities that are risk level 3 & 4. CHD experienced a 50% increase in attendance to scheduled food safety workshops for 2003 as compared to 2002. CHD also experienced a 39% decrease of foodborne illness complaints and outbreaks in 2003 as compared to 2002. This decrease, CHD believes, is directly related to the increased attendance at the food safety workshops and the implementation of learned food safety practices as well as the distribution and implementation of the Food Safety Tool Box to licensed retail food facilities in risk level 3 & 4.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
Columbus Health Department
Primary Contact
No current contact information available
Topics
Health / Food Safety
Organization(s)
Columbus Health Department
Source
National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
Date of publication
2005
Date of implementation
2001
Geographic Type
Urban
Location
Columbus, OH
For more details
Additional Audience
Food Service Establishments
Miami-Dade Matters