MPR: Olmsted County is a Step Ahead

Olmsted County is a Step Ahead
By Jae Bryson
March 16, 2001

Olmsted County is at the forefront of innovative food inspection. County officials changed their restaurant inspection practices in 1998, moving the emphasis from enforcement to education. Olmsted County has won awards for its methods, but few other food inspection agencies in the state are learning from its approach.

Olmsted County Sanitarian Connie Stennard conducts an inspection.
Olmsted County won the Crumbine Award in 2000 for its restaurant inspection processes. It's named after Samuel J. Crumbine (1862-1954), who was the executive officer of the Kansas State Board of Health. Dr. Crumbine worked to change many common practices of his era that were potential sources of disease. During his career he led many changes for health protection, including:

The manner that food is served to the public

The quarantine of people with communicable diseases

Elimination of unsafe potions and cures

Control of flies

Elimination of common towels and drinking cups - especially those supplied on trancontinental trains.

(Photo courtesy of Olmsted County)

OLMSTED COUNTY IS A MODEL FOR FOOD INSPECTION IN MINNESOTA, partly because it doesn't believe in surprises. Inspectors make it a point to tell restaurant proprietors when they are coming to visit. When inspectors arrive, they sit down with managers and ask questions about their food-serving practices.

The Olmsted county program is based on a food safety initiative workshop given by the Food and Drug Administration several years ago. County officials were interested in the new methods, and approached the Minnesota Health Department for permission to come up with an education-based program.

Pete Giesen of Olmsted County says the program is working well. He says the biggest advantage is that restaurant owners don't see inspectors as enemies, and are more likely to share information about food safety issues.

"The scheduled inspection removes those barriers and gets us talking, without that atmosphere of coming in unannounced, and catching them by surprise. That may be an important piece for enforcement cases. But, that approach tends to make it more difficult to get honest communication back and forth around our joint goals of food safety," says Giesen.

Giesen says the emphasis on education doesn't mean the county has dropped enforcement. He says the county has closed establishments since the change in practices. He says there will also be more surprise inspections the future.

SMALLER IS BETTER

Olmsted County's approach is also different than jurisidictions in the Twin Cities area, because only one agency, the county's health department, is responsible for the inspection of all food establishments in the county. In the metro area, some 17 city and county agencies share that responsibility, and enforcement varies widely.

Although Olmsted County won the Crumbine Award in 2000, a national award which recognizes efforts in food safety, few of its peer agencies in the Twin Cities area seem to be using the program as a model. Ramsey County environmental health official Zack Hansen says that's partly because Olmsted County is quite a bit smaller than the metro area.

"There's one newspaper. They have the ability to work with that newspaper to communicate with the community, with the county board, with the city council in Rochester, to build support for different approaches. That approach may not translate well to Minneapolis, or St. Paul, or suburban Ramsey County," says Hansen.

This fall, the Minnesota Health Department will start standardizing food inspection processes across the state. It may then incorporate some of the policies of Olmsted County for all food inspection agencies.

More information:
Olmsted County Public Health Service

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