De La Rosa asks how restaurants learn of health code updates and five-year renewal timing
De La Rosa asks how restaurants are notified when health or food safety rules change and whether renewal should be tied to major changes. Schiff describes public comment notices, industry emails, guidance materials, and compliance periods, but notes tying renewal to a single date would cause all FPC renewals to happen at once.
I wanted to ask about, in your opinion, you know, when the health code is updated or the food safety regulations are updated, how do restaurants get notified that that update is happening?
And then does it make more sense to tie a reapplication to major changes or you all believe that the five years is sufficient?
the five-year reapplication.
So we periodically update the health code because food safety science evolves, and we will keep an eye on the model,
the FDA model food code, at least when we were confident that that was an evidence-based document, and continue to keep our food code, our health code, food safety requirements up to date.
When we do that, we have many opportunities and moments when we notify the industry.
First, when we put that rule out for public comment, we will send an email out to all restaurants because we want them to know that there are rules that the Board of Health is considering, and we want to hear from them what they think of those changes.
If the board adopts those changes, we then take another opportunity and let the industry know that the changes have been made.
We develop guidance materials that we will then distribute.
We will typically have a compliance period, giving us and the restaurants an opportunity to be ready to make those changes.
It's an interesting question that you ask, whether that's the opportunity to update the food protection certificate.
I would want to give that a little more thought.
One challenge off the top of my head is it means that everybody's renewal would have to happen at once.
So the thing.
about, you know, everyone gets their food protection certificate at a different time, depending on when they take that course, that means that the renewals, five-year renewals, are also staggered.
If we tie it to a particular moment that affects the entire universe, that means that everybody would be subject to a renewal at the same time.
So that might be a challenge, but we can give that a little more thought.
Great.
Thank you for your answers.
And one suggestion is also, I'm sure you all do this in some way or another, but also having folks on the ground, just because I know that, you know, and when we talk about tech and digital, the digital divide, there's some businesses that are very, you know,
anti-tech, not because they want to be, but that's just who's running them, right?
And so we want to make sure that folks are on the ground, letting people know about these changes.
I think that's a good way to compromise on that.
Thank you.
And that is a part when the reason that we have a little lead time before we implement typically is because it is a chance for the inspector to talk through with the restaurant owner what's coming.
Absolutely agree.
Thank you.