The Science of Food Safety: Understanding and Preventing Foodborne Illness Outbreaks

Recent outbreaks have highlighted vulnerabilities in food safety systems. What are the early warning signs that restaurants should monitor to prevent widespread contamination? How do factors like suppliers, but also kitchen layout, equipment design, and workflow patterns impact contamination risk? How restaurants can leverage technology to avoid spreading foodborne illness and protect their team members and customers?

To gain insights on what operators can do to prevent outbreaks, Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine turned to Christine Schindler, CEO and Co-Founder of PathSpot, a digital health and safety system designed to effectively eliminates the spread of foodborne illness throughout the entire food cycle. The company has a customer base of 10,000 locations including Chopt, Marriott, Taco Bell, and Arby’s.

In light of recent E-coli incidents and the Boars Head Listeria outbreak, all with trusted and respected brands, what should operators be doing to ensure guest trust?

These situations highlight a critical reality: even the strongest brands can face significant challenges in today's interconnected food system.   In fact, the larger the business, the more safeguards are required to effectively monitor health and wellness at scale.

A brand’s reputation can be irreversibly damaged when the safety of their food is called into question.  Gaining trust from today's guests requires a steadfast commitment to safety protocols, and those protocols should be communicated to guests to demonstrate  the brand’s commitment to safety. This means implementing real-time monitoring systems, creating transparent data-driven protocols, and empowering teams with immediate feedback for corrective change. The operators who will maintain trust are those who recognize that safety must be both rigorous and evident to guests.

Studies show that 89 percent of America's 48 million annual foodborne illness cases are linked to inadequate handwashing. Can you break down the science of how pathogens like E. coli spread through hand contact in commercial kitchens?

Foodborne pathogens like E. coli can rapidly spread through food service facilities from a single contaminated source, persisting on surfaces and posing long-term contamination risks. Without proper proactive and  preventive measures, this can lead to widespread consumer illness and damage to a brand's reputation.

Here's how it typically unfolds: A contaminated surface, such as a prep table that's had contact with compromised produce, becomes a primary transmission point. A team member's hands may contact this surface while reaching for another ingredient. Those hands then touch multiple other surfaces – storage container lids, refrigerator handles, utensils – without being washed. Each of these touchpoints becomes a secondary transmission point. In a busy kitchen where team members are handling hundreds of items per hour, this can create dozens of contamination points before any visible signs appear. This invisible spread is particularly dangerous during peak service periods when multiple team members are sharing prep stations and equipment or cleaning protocols are rushed under pressure. 

When we look at the complexity of restaurant operations – multiple stations, high-volume service periods, staff rotation – what are the critical control points where contamination is most likely to occur?

From an operational perspective, contamination risk concentrates at specific high-traffic convergence points in the kitchen. Primary among these are transition areas where ingredients move from storage to prep, prep to cooking, and cooking to service. Handwashing becomes a crucial intervention point to prevent the spread of contamination from one area of the kitchen to another. 

Traditional food safety monitoring often relies on manual checklists and visual inspection. From a scientific perspective, what are the benefits and limitations of these methods in detecting dangerous pathogens?

Traditional monitoring methods face fundamental limitations in modern foodservice operations. Manual checklists, bathroom signs reminding employees to wash their hands and visual inspections were designed for a different era of food service – one with simpler supply chains and lower volumes. The core challenge is scale and visibility: pathogens operate at a microscopic level while our traditional tools operate at a macroscopic level.

Temperature logs and cleaning checklists serve an important documentation purpose, but they can't detect active contamination in real-time. And of course, they’re more susceptible to human error. Visual inspection can confirm that a surface, such as your hands, appears clean, but cannot verify it's pathogen-free. Combine those limitations with the massive time constraints put on today’s food service worker, and you have a system fraught with missteps.  Technology can change that. 

The FDA reports that proper handwashing could prevent 80% of foodborne illnesses, yet compliance remains a challenge. What behavioral and operational factors contribute to this persistent gap?

In the fast-paced environment of a kitchen, particularly at high-volume operations, employees often feel forced to choose between thoroughness and efficiency. At peak service hours, they might feel obliged to skip that necessary hand wash in between meal preparation or cut the CDC’s recommended 20-second wash down to 10.

Without digital accountability and immediate verification that hands are actually clean versus just washed, small lapses in protocol can compound quickly.

Recent outbreaks have highlighted vulnerabilities in food safety systems. How do factors like suppliers, but also kitchen layout, equipment design, and workflow patterns impact contamination risk?

Modern kitchen operations represent complex ecosystems where the risk of contamination is influenced by multiple interconnected factors. Supply chain vulnerability has emerged as a critical concern – a single contaminated ingredient can now impact multiple locations across different brands due to shared distribution networks. In addition, kitchen layout creates either barriers or highways for cross-contamination: The positioning of handwashing stations relative to prep areas, the flow patterns between hot and cold stations, and the placement of shared equipment all influence risk patterns.

Understanding these systemic relationships allows operators to implement more effective prevention strategies that address not just individual points of risk but the entire operational ecosystem.

Data shows that many foodborne illness cases go unreported until an outbreak occurs. What are the early warning signs that restaurants should monitor to prevent widespread contamination?

Early detection requires a systematic approach to monitoring both direct and indirect indicators of contamination risk. Advanced detection systems can now identify contamination on hands and surfaces before it spreads into the food supply. Real-time temperature monitoring across prep and storage areas also provides crucial data about potential bacterial growth conditions. Digital compliance tracking can reveal patterns in hygiene practices that may indicate emerging risks.

With the right system in place, management can monitor all of this vital information across any number of locations in real-time through a single dashboard, ensuring no risk goes unnoticed. And most importantly, that action can be taken to prevent any risk to team members or guests.  

Looking at infection patterns across commercial kitchens, what have you learned about the relationship between employee training, automated monitoring, and outbreak prevention?

Our extensive data analysis reveals that effective prevention requires a synchronized approach to training and monitoring. When team members receive immediate feedback on their hygiene practices through digital systems, compliance improves dramatically. The data shows that 97 percent of employees using automated monitoring systems report increased awareness of food safety practices. But the key insight is that this improvement is sustained over time when reinforced by continuous feedback.

We also know that team members appreciate the extra check because we have seen a significant increase in team members washing and scanning their hands at the end of their shift, ensuring that they are not bringing any contaminants home to those they love most – their family and friends.  That is an incredible testament to behavioral change and their commitment to safety.