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Food Safety Network Blog

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

LA part 1


So I made it to LA, on my pilgramage to the food premises inspection heart of the world. I found out yesterday that LA was not the first place in North America to assign and post grades at restaurants, but they have been the most influential and replicated system; since LA has begun their system grade posting has popped up all over North America (there are over 80 systems to-date).

Dani and I went to a local market on Broadway in downtown LA yesterday to look for the grade cards. The market was busy, we saw some A and B grades (no C's, which have so far been elusive) and lots of patrons at all stalls. You can see the B grade prominently displayed in the picture here.

As for celebrities, I did interview Paul Simon yesterday, though not the one who paired with Art Garfunkel, this Paul Simon is an epidemiologist. Dr. Simon provided me with some insights into the evaluation of LA's inspection disclosure program.

What is becoming more apparent to me is that public health systems like LA's are working not just because there is a grade that is posted, but as one of my interviewees suggested yesterday, that they are interested in engaging in a food safety dialogue with restaurant operators and (probably most importantly) with the public.

2 Comments:

At 12:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Inspection system in Dubai gives grades to hotels and restaurants based on the score. But not published.

 
At 3:18 PM, Blogger Ben Chapman said...

Cool, is it public information though? (could a customer go to the health department and ask?)

 

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