20 MAY 2016 No one at Chipotle will say what its new safety programmes cost, except to say “very, very expensive.” As well as these programmes, the company is facing at least seven lawsuits, the most recently filed by a mother whose son was infected with norovirus in Boston. This is what they did in late October last year, after the E.coli crisis: Hired a laboratory to come up with aggressive food safety plan to bring contamination risk to near zero. Recommendations included: • Preparing food ahead of time and transporting to 19 distribution centres and then to more than 1900 restaurants; • Pre-harvested produce screened for pathogens in small batches using high-resolution DNA-based tests; if produce passes initial tests, then sent to commissaries where it’s washed, sanitised and retested; • Commissaries responsible for cleaning and packaging of vegetables, with barbacoa and carnitas vacuum-packed and cooked sous vide in a temperature-regulated bath. Steak and chicken arrive raw in restaurants and new protocols require changes to how the meat is marinated; workers will add cilantro to higher temperature rice; • On the most efficient Chipotle lines, customers will get their food in less than two minutes (more than 300 transactions per hour). Most other fast-casual chains take from four to six minutes; • An alarm goes off every hour in every Chipotle restaurant, to remind workers to wash their hands and put on new latex gloves. Chipotle opened 192 restaurants in 2014, around 225 in 2015 and the same this year, resulting in a seven per cent increase in staff totalling 4000 new employees. of processing foods to effectively inactivate micro-organisms like Salmonella, Clostridium perfringens and Campylobacter, while maintaining product quality. However scientists warn they need to learn more about how these light rays penetrate foods at varying degrees to ensure food safety. Tatiana Koutchma, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food of Canada, has been exploring a new application by experimenting with UV purification to extend the shelf life of cold-pressed juices as well as iced teas, soft drinks, syrups, milk, cheese and calf milk. “It’s an alternative to pasteurisation and ESL method for juices, milk products, liquid sugars, liquid ingredients, raw and finished food products,” Koutchma says. “More research is needed for milk, fresh juices and wines.” Amongst the myriad other technology developments is vertical farming, located from Japan to Jackson, Wyoming, where plucking fresh lettuce is as easy as looking up. Vertical farms are multiple storeys, often have hydroponic systems and artificial light to mimic the sun, use less water, create less waste and take up less space than traditional farming. They are, establishers say, also a surefire way to protect from food contamination. The jury is still out. But, as New York-based Grace Communications Foundation warns, the significant corporate consolidation of global food production has created a food system that values quantity over quality. “Every single decision a farmer or corporation makes about growing or raising a certain kind of food affects the final product. Cutting corners on the quality of animal feed, waste management, training for farm workers, processing methods and distribution all affect the safety of our food. “From E.coli in spinach to mad cow disease in beef, it is clear that lowering the bottom line at any cost creates significant concerns about the safety of our food.” *Bill’s name has been changed for legal requirements. F E AT U R E WHAT CHIPOTLE DID NEXT: Amongst the myriad other technology developments is vertical farming, located from Japan to Jackson, Wyoming, where plucking fresh lettuce is as easy as looking up.
FT-May16
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