How to Handle a Foodborne Illness Complaint

Let’s hope this never happens. The damage can be severe and far reaching with illness affecting customers and employees, resulting in staff shortages, bad publicity, law suits, fines and ultimately a loss in revenue.

This is why it’s important to have a food safety program in place and to encourage a culture of food safety in the workplace. Safety controls are there to minimize the risk of food contamination and to protect workers and the public.

If, however, you receive multiple complaints of contaminated food, here’s what you need to do:

• Report it immediately to your local health department.
• Keep a detailed record of each complaint, including who made the complaint, contact information, the date of the communication and what symptoms they experienced.
• You will need to check how the contaminated food or drink was prepared with a view to pinpointing the cause of the contamination.
• Ask your staff if they have experienced similar symptoms as they could be the root cause of the contamination.