September’s Arrival Brings Food Safety Education Month

Food safety is key year-round, but September brings a renewed focus on highlighting the foodservice industry’s commitment to preparing and serving safe meals. September is the 17^th annual National Food Safety Education Month. This year’s theme is “Lessons Learned from the Health Inspection” andincludes a five-week curriculum, each stressing different food safety basics and how they apply to the health inspection process. The sessions cover: working with a health inspector, handling food, cleaning and sanitizing, proper food storage techniques, and handling utensils and equipment

These training activities as well as food safety tips and free posters are available for download at www.ServSafe.com/nfsem. All NFSEM materials are based on the National Restaurant Association’s ServSafe food safety training and certification program, which has awarded more than 4.6 million certifications. The website also includes a toolkit operators can use to promote their participation in NFSEM. It includes sample news releases, tweets and e-mail templates.

Additional materials is at the FDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service’s webpage.