As a follow up to yesterday’s post “9 tips to prepare for a health inspection” we have another article from restaurant.org on working with health inspectors.
Restaurant operators and health inspectors aren’t adversaries. Think of a food inspector as a partner as you work together to achieve shared goals of preventing foodborne illness and protecting guests’ health.
Here are seven tips to build a productive relationship with health inspectors:
- Be polite and professional. Encourage managers encourage to ask the inspector questions. They should feel free to dispute any violations they feel are inaccurate, but they should raise disputes in a professional, non-confrontational way. When you disagree with an inspector’s assessment, ask how he or she arrived at that decision, and offer your interpretation of the regulations. The discussion often can help you arrive at a solution.
- Correct mistakes as soon as possible. Repeated violations will give the inspector the sense their inspections aren’t being taken seriously, which could lead to lower inspection scores. Make managers aware of violations so they can correct them.
- Demonstrate progress. In the event your restaurant has a less-than-satisfactory result from an inspection, it’s important to show that you have a plan to address the issue. Show the inspector your corrective action plan and ask him or her to add it to your restaurant’s file. Being able to demonstrate that you took action will help offset the negative impact of past results.
- Be proactive. Seek opportunities to work with inspectors outside the confines of routine inspections. For example, if your state or county has a new food safety regulation or recently updated its food code, consider contacting your inspector to ask about the changes and how they will impact your restaurant.
- Get involved. Serving on state and local task forces or advisory committees will provide you with opportunities to work with inspectors and gain a greater understanding of their work. Getting to know inspectors personally and working toward the common goal of protecting consumers will help build trust in you and your restaurant.
- Share your food safety plans. Inspectors often are interested in the steps you’re taking to comply with new food safety rules and regulations. What they learn will help them advise other restaurants they work with. Share your plans with them, and ask for feedback.
- Seek inspectors’ advice. Are you launching a new product or testing a new process? Ask your health inspector how it will be impacted by the food code. They might have suggestions that will help you improve your business.
Be prepared for your inspection, learn what to do when a health inspector visits and ensure appropriate follow-up from an inspection.
Like any audit the health inspectors love consistency and documented processes. This shows a due care approach to restaurant and food safety. We talked about due diligence and due care last week, click here for that post.
Aside from being polite and accommodating to the health inspector, being organized goes a long way as well. Being able to easily present line checks and temp logs for a specific time period or self inspection reports for the past month can wow an inspector. This shows organization and consistency in daily execution which in turn results in better and safer operating restaurants.