ment puts them in place. With the
current technology available, prevent-
ing foodborne illness from bacteria
affected by temperature is fairly
straightforward. However, protection
against food tampering isn't as clear.
Tampering is biggest challenge
A major concern for health depart-
ment officials is how micro market
operators can protect people from
situations that may compromise
food safety or food defense, such as
intentional food tampering. "It will
come down to monitoring and if the
FDA agrees to the idea of using video
surveillance," explained Eils.
While surveillance is widely used
by operators to prevent, or at least
deal with theft of products in micro
markets, NAMA is arguing that it
can also be used to detect and pros-
ecute food tampering. Eils believes
the association will need to pro-
vide data that having cameras
reduces theft of product. It can then
be argued that if theft is affected (and
controlled) by surveillance, so too
is tampering. "We need stats about
theft and how surveillance works,"
said Eils. "If theft is under control,
then tampering will be under con-
trol, too. That's the argument we will
likely take with the FDA."
Prevention of food tampering
with no staff on site was one action
item Rosenberg had to address with
the Texas health department early
on. "In line with the challenges of
education about our defined business
category and the State's classification
was attended vs. unattended," said
Rosenberg. "Our cameras having
the ability to capture all activities
within the store insulated us from
food tampering surveillance and we
use a sealed food package to further
minimize risk...once we demonstrate
the level of discipline and compliance
we have at micro markets, we can
typically move past any other con-
cerns," finished Rosenberg.
Beyond the tampering and tem-
perature issues, is the requirement of
keeping the area clean and stocked.
How best to achieve this in a micro
market should be left up to the opera-
tor, suggests the guidelines from the
Conference for Food Protection.
Multi-use food-contact surfaces shall
34 Automatic Merchandiser VendingMarketWatch.com October/November 2016
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