Comparisons of microbiological evaluations of selected kitchen areas with visual inspections for preventing potential risk of foodborne outbreaks in food service operations

Most local health departments utilize visual, but not microbiological, meth ods when inspecting food service operations. To evaluate the marginal utili ty of microbial testing for minimizing potential risks of foodborne outbrea ks in restaurants, swab samples were taken from handwashing sink faucets. f reshly cleaned and sanitized food-contact surfaces, and from cooler or free zer door handles in 70 of 350 category-three (high-risk) food service opera tions in Toledo, Ohio. The swabs were inoculated onto different selective m edia, and standard procedures were used to identify pathogenic and nonpatho genic bacteria. Microbiological evaluations of the sampled food service ope rations were compared with visual inspection reports, using a numeric ratin g scale. Enteric bacteria (that may indicate fecal contamination) were foun d on food contact surfaces, on cooler or freezer door handles, and on handw ashing sink faucets in 86, 57, and 53% of the food service operations, resp ectively. Approximately 27, 40, and 33% of the restaurants received visual ratings of very poor to poor, fair, and good to very good, respectively. In comparison, 10, 17, and 73% of the restaurants received microbiological ra ting scores of very poor to poor, fair, and good to very good, respectively . Restaurants with trained personnel received significantly higher visual r ating scores than restaurants without trained personnel (P < 0.01). Althoug h more restaurants received poor rating scores by visual inspection than by microbiological evaluation, the presence of fecal bacteria from different sites in more than 50% of the food service operations indicated that visual inspection alone might not be sufficient for minimizing potential risk for foodborne disease outbreaks. Therefore, we recommend periodic microbiologi cal evaluation of high-risk food service operations, in addition to visual inspection, for minimizing the risk of foodborne disease outbreaks.