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Description
The effects caused by climate change are anticipated to adversely impact public health in our population in many ways, including an increase in foodborne illness. An increase in daily temperatures could compromise food safety in the restaurant industry by increasing cold-holding temperatures. Restaurants are linked to a large number of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, and the CDC lists improper hot/cold holding temperatures of potentially hazardous foods as one of the five main predictors of foodborne illness. The objective of this study was to determine whether seasonal differences influenced cold-holding violations found in food facilities during routine inspections. In this study food inspection reports from five cities (chosen to represent higher and lower income neighborhoods) within the Orange County District during a two-year period between 04/03/2017-03/29/2019 were analyzed for cold-holding violations. A total of 11,223 inspections were conducted during this time period with a total of 5,106 hot or cold holding violations. Since these are classified together, the data were manually reviewed to classify the violation as hot- or cold-holding in nature. Restaurant cuisine type was also manually classified through a Yelp search. Of the violations classified as hot or cold holding violations, 85% were found to be cold-holding violations after manual review. The study found cold- holding violations were more likely during the warm months (0.44 cold-holding violations/inspection in summer vs. 0.38 in fall and spring and 0.33 in winter). Non-chain restaurants (85.8% of restaurants) were more likely to be cited for a hot/cold violation (88.3% of hot/cold violations). This study, while being limited to Orange County, suggests that climate change might increase cold-holding violations, especially in non-chain restaurants. To make this issue easier to study, violations should be coded separately as cold- holding or hot-holding, and future efforts should be focused on increased inspections as well as overall supplementary education and training provided to business owners and employees.
