Review of Food Safety Violations: Urban School Foodservice

In the United States over 29 million elementary and high school students, a potentially higher risk population, consume school lunches each day, and the need for proper food safety is paramount. Though numerous interventions have been implemented in school foodservice, foodborne illness continues to be an issue in the United States. Ultimately, an understanding of recurring food safety violations would inform development of targeted food safety training interventions that could mitigate the number of foodborne illness outbreaks. The aim of this study was to analyze food safety violation trends from 2010 to 2019 in a large urban school system to explore research and educational opportunities. Over 20% of food safety inspections resulted in failure; 9.0% of all violations were critical, 11.9% were serious, and 79.1% were minor. These findings underscore the need to reevaluate current food safety educational interventions and food safety handling practices. Key critical and serious violation trends were lack of food safety knowledge, lack of temperature controls throughout the food preparation process, and lack of appropriate supplies. Recurring minor violations pertained to cleanliness of the facility (ventilation, flooring, walls, ceiling, and food and non food-contact surfaces).