December, 2003 - Eating Before It Gets Cold

Winston-Salem company has found its business niche with new food-management technology.

An article from The Winston-Salem Journal
By Howard Edwards

Cooking up a storm is a tricky business in the food-service industry, where time and temperature can make the difference between a happy eating experience and an unpleasant illness.

But new technology is lending a hand in the fight against food-borne diseases.

In such large organizations as hospitals, prisons and education establishments that regularly have to prepare large quantities of food, strict rules govern the handling, cooking, chilling and reheating of food. These regulations, known as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, help reduce the chance of such bacteria and viruses as Salmonellosis, Staphylococcal and E. coli ruining your meal and your health.

A Winston-Salem company, Burlodge USA, is at the forefront in food service with food-management technology that prepares, delivers and monitors the food from the time it is cooked to when it reaches its recipient.

"Food quality and its risk management have improved significantly over the years," said Peter Scotland, a culinary consultant for Burlodge USA. Burlodge provides chilling and rethermalization (reheating) units to about 92 institutions throughout the United States, ranging from hospitals to prisons.

"It's all about time and temperature," Scotland said.

"There is a danger zone between 41 and 140 degrees where bacteria can flourish. We provide chilling and tray-delivery carts which minimize this risk by controlling the temperature of food and monitoring it to ensure it spends as little time as possible in the danger zone," Scotland said.

In the health-care industry, the company's primary target in the United States, food typically can be prepared on or off-site.

Burlodge's blast chillers can quickly chill the food to below 41 degrees, and it can be stored or put into tray-delivery carts where it is kept chilled until time for use. According to Scotland, the food can then be reheated to regulation temperatures, which must be above 165 degrees in preparation for delivery.

A temperature of 165 degrees is known as the kill temperature for bacteria and is the minimum temperature setting required when reheating food.

Scotland says that once this has been done, the food must be served at a temperature above 140 degrees but usually below 165 degrees, which he said would be a little too hot for most people's tastes.

The company provides food-safety monitoring software which allows clients to check on and control food delivery, including monitoring all delivery carts, from the comfort of their own office.

"The bottom line with the regulations is food safety and prevention of food-borne illness," said Robert Whitwam, the environmental-health supervisor for the Forsyth County Health Department's Division of Environmental Health.

Between 1998 and 2002, there were 631 cases of illness in Forsyth County likely to have stemmed from food-borne diseases or contamination, the chief culprit being Salmonellosis (Salmonella) with 254 reported cases, according to the Health Surveillance Unit of the Forsyth County Department of Public Health.

Whitwam also said that there are likely to be more cases of gastroenteritis in the community that are not reported or confirmed.

People in such large organizations as hospitals and nursing homes are more susceptible to these diseases because their immune systems are weakened. According to Whitwam, "Anytime you start preparing large volumes and quantities of food, there's more room for problems. That's why we start relying on technology like the Cook and Chill system, which really focuses on the time/temperature relationship in food. If that food is off-temperature, that is between 41 and 140 degrees, for an extended period of time, any bacteria there will start to grow.

"From a time-and-temperature perspective, this sort of system will allow management (personnel) to monitor each patient's food from the time it is plated, which is good, but," he added, "the system has to work properly."

"What we're concerned with is the control of that food product through the entire range of pre-paration, storage plating rethermalization and delivery to the floor," said Whitwam, whose department makes unannounced inspections of all food-service organizations. "Cook and Chill has its merits, especially in a large facility where you're handling many meals and they are going to several different locations."

Burlodge recently won a contract to provide 150 customized rethermalization units to the Mar-icopa County Correctional Facility in Arizona. The company has also turned its attention to the Carolinas and is pursuing more contracts in North Carolina and the Triad.

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