New multilingual sticker
urges hand washing
for foodhandlersSeveral Hawaii groups
collaborated on the warning
to help fight tainted edibles
The creators of a new sticker promoting hand washing for people who handle and prepare food hope the item will become a common sight at Hawaii's food retailers and restaurants.
The 8 1/2-inch-by-11-inch sticker, which features basic hand-washing advice in 14 languages, is available free to anyone involved in food-related activities, such as restaurants, farms, food wholesalers, schools and health care facilities. It is available at state Department of Health's Sanitation Branch offices on all islands.
The sticker is a collaboration between the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, the state departments of Health and Agriculture and five food-related trade organizations.
There are a host of food-borne illness that can be contracted as a result of eating tainted food.
For example, between 125,000 and 200,000 people contract Hepatitis A each year. The illness can be spread by an infected person who does not wash his or her hands before handling food or utensils. Uncooked foods, such as salads, are particularly vulnerable.
Studies have shown that anyone who washes his or her hands regularly can reduce the potential for infections by 25 to 50 percent and gastrointestinal illness by up to 80 percent, according to CTAHR's Dr. Aurora Saulo.
With Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, the sticker is a timely reminder -- especially in light of the recent severe hepatitis outbreak in Western Pennsylvania, which sickened 500 people and led to three deaths. The victims were linked back to a single restaurant.
"Hand washing is the key," said Brian Choy, head of the DOH Sanitation Branch, which investigates complaints about tainted food.
Choy conceded it can be a big job to trace back the source of tainted food.
Eventually, computerized codes on all food products will make making tracing easier, but there's still a long way to go.
Encouraging hand washing is one simple way to cut down on potential infections, he said.
The hand-washing sticker is part of the move nationwide toward ensuring greater safety in all segments of the food chain, starting at the farm. A growing number of supermarkets have initiated food safety guidelines they now expect their suppliers to meet. And a growing list of companies are moving toward buying only produce that is certified as having been processed according to safety guidelines.
One of the companies moving toward food certification is wholesaler Armstrong Produce. The company is in the process of building a state-of-the-art, fully enclosed facility in Mapunapuna that it hopes will be ready early next year.
"Our new facility will be totally enclosed so it will be a lot earlier to maintain things like temperature which are a little hard now," said Armstrong Marketing Director Tish Uyehara, formerly a deputy director with the state Department of Agriculture.
The company also has sent out notices to its suppliers letting them know they are moving forward on safety issues and would like growers and suppliers to get into good agricultural practices.
It also will require standardization of box sizes, not only for better tracking and inventory control, but also for food safety reasons. Right now, farmers may reuse boxes, she said, but eventually that will change. Armstrong also is passing out the hand-washing posters to their growers, Uehara said.
Response by farmers in Hawaii to the new safety guidelines has been slow, according to government officials and industry watchers. But it's likely in the future that all produce suppliers will need to be audited by an independent firm to certify that their fruits and vegetables are in compliance with all safety guidelines.
Sam Camp, division administrator of quality assurance at the state Department of Agriculture, said his department is in the process of training more inspectors for the food safety certification process.
"I think food safety and food traceability are the coming things," Camp said.
"Right now we don't have a law that we can make anyone do anything. All we can do is help and advise," he said.
