ABC - a New Grading System for American Restaurants - Research Paper Example

ABC restaurant grading system ABC restaurant grading system I. Introduction From July there was the establishment of newgrading system for the New York City restaurants or simply all food service establishments that required posting of letter grades that were meant to correspond to the establishment’s inspection scores. This was an action taken by the Health Department in America to ensure that consumers had enough information so as to make informed choices on the places where they would prefer to eat. In this case, it was believed that by enhancing consumer awareness, it was a powerful incentive to ensure that restaurants maintain the highest level of food safety standards (Colgan, 2010). Therefore, the ABC restaurant grading system served to a large extend in changing the lifestyle of New York City dwellers by providing an opportunity for them to make their choice on consuming hygienic food in hygienic places. That is, it has availed an opportunity for them to choose healthy standards of living. According to Jensen (2010), all New York City restaurants were assigned letter ratings starting with an A, B, and C depending on the restaurant rating on cleanliness and food safety scale of the Health Department. These grades are meant to show the extent to which a restaurant complies with the requirements set by the New York City Health Code as well as the State Sanitary Code. a). The meaning of Letter A, B, and C In the inspection process of a restaurant’s sanitary conditions, inspectors assign numerical value points to the different violations of the Health Code. Every violation carries unique number of points depending on its severity and nature. When these violation points are summed up, the resultant measure gives the restaurant’s general sanitary condition. The scores are then used by the Health Department to generate some letter grades that can easily be interpreted. Grade A stands for a sum of violation points of between 0 to 13, Grade B stands for a sum of violation points of between 14 to 27, and Grade C stands for a sum of violation points of 28 or more (Mathews & Writer, 2010). b). Requirements after grading However, when a restaurant is graded B or C, this is not final grade until it is given the chance to go face the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings Health Tribunal so as to contest allegations of violations leveled against it. During this time, the restaurant is allowed to post either a card reading “Grade Pending” or a preliminary grade card. When the Grade is finally established, the restaurant must immediately take down the “Grade Pending” card and post the final letter grade card. In the first year of grading, it is expected that most restaurants earn a grade of B. After this process, those with B and C grades are also expected to make an improvement in their overall food safety practices (EHA Consulting Group, INC, n.d). However, the Health Department is mandated to close down all restaurants that are posing a health hazard to public health (Saxena, 2011). This is an activity meant to be performed annually for the food establishments that receive a grading of A. A restaurant that scores B invites next initial inspection within 5 to 7 months, and a restaurant with a grading of C invites next initial inspection within 3 to 5 months (Sabatini, 2011). It is the mandate of the Health Department to issue permits to some food service establishments that need it and therefore receive letter grades to be posted that imply their sanitary inspection scores. c). The term food service establishments It is important to mention that when the term food service establishments is mentioned, it simply refers to restaurants, coffee shops, fixed-site food stands, retail bakeries, cafeterias, bars, and night clubs. However, these letter grades are not issued to temporary food service establishments, mobile food vending units, establishments operated by secondary or primary schools, charitable organizations, correctional facilities, hospital-operated cafeterias, or establishments run by not-for-profit organizations that serve their food only to their members. II. Cleaner restaurants a). Requirements about facility condition in terms of harborage, vermin proof status and others In this system, the cleaner restaurants are those that receive a grade of A and are assumed to have the most minimum violations. In this regard, they are expected to have sealed all the cracks, crevices, and holes in their walls, doors, and cabinets through which cockroaches, rodents, and flies could use to enter; installed doors that have rodent proof sweeps to prevent rodent entry; cleaned their equipment as well as floor under and around the equipment; cleaned oil, grease, and food particles from all the surfaces. These restaurants are also expected to make a review of the Department and Health Code rules on the most acceptable materials for kitchen and food preparation surfaces and make sure that apart from all surfaces being clean, they are smooth and cleanable. b). Requirements about pest control According to the regulations, these establishments are expected to have hired a qualified pest control professional with a license to work in restaurants; ensure that they follow integrated pest control management practices; maintained a harborage and vermin proof environment; ensured that food and garbage are stored in vermin proof containers; and ensured that apart from being clean, all surfaces are dry and free of debris (Thomas, 2011). c). Requirements about control of food temperatures Regulations stipulate that restaurants are supposed to ensure that food is held at correct temperatures by making a review of the Department and Health Code rules in order to understand the correct temperature holding procedures; maintain a record of how long food has been out after removal from hot or cold storage; monitor food temperature in cold or hot storage; and ensure that their hot or cold holding equipment functions properly and is able to maintain correct temperatures of food. d). Sanitary requirements In sanitary terms, the establishments are supposed to constantly monitor plumbing fixtures and ensure that all repairs are made immediately in case of fault and ensure that there is an approved backflow prevention gadget fixed in the plumbing system. All cutting surfaces are supposed to be properly sanitized; cutting boards that are deeply grooved replaced or repaired and ensure that all food preparation surfaces are cleaned and sanitized after each use. Food is supposed to be prevented from contamination by covering it at all times before serving and segregating it by type and temperature. In addition to all the above, a restaurant that is graded A always has one or more supervisors during operation hours with food protection certificates (Thomas, 2011). Therefore, ABC restaurant grading system has improved the restaurant industry in New York City by tremendously improving sanitation and instilling competition on this note. Therefore, ABC restaurant grading system has improved the restaurant industry in New York City by tremendously improving sanitation and instilling competition on this note. III. Decrease in food-borne illness a). Measures taken According to Farley, (2011), grading system in the US restaurant was launched to keep the standards of health in progress. The hygienic standards have ineffective quantifiable data to get the right figures on the efforts put forward to prevent food borne ailments. According to the study carried out in Los Angels, a lot of emphasis is put on the grade card for publicity (Lawn, 2010). Food borne has been reported to cause massive hospitalization and later on deaths annually in U.S.A. According to the surveillance report, there was up to fifty percent outbreak of food borne illnesses before the introduction of the grading system in 1987. The report posted by Disease Prevention and Control Centre in 2000, it was found out that numerous deaths had occurred in restaurant and other commercialized food places due to food poisoning. b). Inspection of the restaurants This program that was meant to ensure that restaurants were inspected from time to time was designed to enhance rapid improvement in the food safety practices of every restaurant. If the restaurants would not manage to earn itself an A in its initial inspection, the inspection team would not grade this restaurants but then announce the second inspection one month later. It occurred that the final grade for this restaurant would be established in the second session. This was an opportunity for restaurants to prove themselves in the face of their customers by correcting aspects they had not improved. According to Farley (2011), a study carried out on this showed that only 39% of all grade A restaurants earned it in the initial inspection. The remaining 61 % earned their grade A in their second inspection. Those that had an initial grading of B in the initial inspection, approximately 40% of them earned a grade A in their re-inspection. And those that earned a grade of C in their initial inspection, approximately 72 % of them improved tremendously to earn a grade of A or B on re-inspection. In general, most restaurants had a tremendous improvement when inspected on the second round. For instance, in January 2011 after six month from the month of grading, there were only 27 % restaurants that earned an A grade in the initial inspection. When it came to July 2011, it happened that 40 % now earn a grade A on their initial inspection. In this year, 40 % of all restaurants improved in their grading between the initial inspection and the second inspection (Farley, 2011). This is a statistic to actually show that the ABC grading system had a great improvement on the general living standards of New Yorkers in terms of their restaurant hygiene standards. Introduction of the grading system in the restaurant sector, has found out that those areas with low-income level, registered a lower level of hygiene than those living in medium level income areas. Furthermore, introducing the grading system led to an increase in the hygiene for those above the median level. Thus, the grade cards were seen to have a positive impact on the hygiene of the restaurants in the USA (Jones, 1998). Effects of grade cards The implementation of the grading system in Los Angels was 25% in the year 1993-1998 and thus an A grade (Kleen, 2009). According to the statistics from the Los Angels, health department was at 57% in 1997 and later rose in the subsequent years. In this report, the restaurants used grading cards to grade the various restaurants. From the same document, there was a decrease in number of hospitalized tourists. This is because the consumers opted for a good hygiene in the A grade restaurants (Lawn, 2010). c). Effect to the economy In the same manner, the owners of many restaurants showed commitment to improve the standards. The introduction of the cards led to improved quality in hygiene thus boosted the economy. The rates increased with respect to the various categories they were put into. A or B grade boosts the consumers morale to take meals in new restaurants. In the end, there is a fair competition on the dollar incurred in dining. Consumers become aware of the of the hygiene of the restaurants and the public get a realizable information about the hygiene of restaurants on the internet (Glazer, 2011). In addition, the information found by the grade cards was more reliable than those from the internet were. The efficiency of the grade cards is in the criteria used in assessing it. This assessment criterion helped to heighten the level of confidence in the cards. IV. Increase in profit for the A grading restaurants a). Performance of an A grade restaurant. A top ranking of a restaurant means that the restaurant is performing especially if boosted by the media. A grade shows that the restaurant is excellent and cannot be compared to other classes. This shows that it is an extraordinary rank of the entire group of restaurants in the industry. This means that it goes above the success of many businesses. With such a reputation, the restaurant is enabled and attracts all the tourists in the city. b). Customer control in restaurants In A class restaurant, the managers may put up strategies to maximize its profits. For instance, the managers can employ the trick called tightening up. In this case, one can control the number of guests in a restaurant by inflating the costs. A situation whereby the dining room is filled to capacity, the restaurant may decide to increase the prices in order to reduce the number of people that can afford food in the place. As a manager in such restaurants, look keenly at the food cost and eliminate unnecessary expenditures that would lead to losses. One can also keep in mind that cooks should have more time in preparing food. This is in order to keep the grading required and as well ensure that the grading does not really affect opinions of people visiting the restaurants. There shouldn’t be cases where by someone one is idle and bored but instead very happy and highly concerned with their cooking. In order to have quality cooking, the restaurant owner should participate in the process of cooking and make sure that the food tastes better (Lawn, 2010). Some of the restaurant owners in New York City have been taking these approaches in keeping their customer data base. This means that there has been instigation of some form of healthy competition which sometimes go beyond operational mechanisms as illustrated above and only dwell on improving reputation through the most conventional methods such as attaining and retaining proper grade. c). Increased guest rate enrolment With the establishment of the grading system in the New York city, many restaurants started receiving increased number of visitors and this systems helped increase the level of customer trust in the restaurants. Most tourists around the world including those from local regions in America wanted to visit restaurants in the New York City. d). Promotion of the restaurant With this grading system, there was no need for the extra costs that restaurants spend in marketing themselves in order to win many customers. This grading system was a short cut means for all restaurants to prove their value in the face of their customers and let go the unnecessary struggles of marketing. A restaurant only needed to ensure that it had the grade A and have more than half of its journey towards marketing its brand done. V. Conclusion The restaurant grading system has been a great improvement to the New York City restaurants sanitary conditions. In this regard, the restaurant owners have cushioned the consumer against possible public health problems that could sometimes arise from improper sanitary conditions. The health department created these rules with the motive of increasing consumer awareness and in effect producing the greatest incentive to keep restaurants restless on sanitary matters. This incentive is highly effective as it establishes competition between restaurants by use of sanitation as a tool to out-do others (Glazer, 2011). The Health Department came up with regulations to ensure that the sanitary aspect is adequately addressed and that those restaurants that violate most of these regulations are closed down or given lower grade that would sometimes later translate into less customers. This has been a workable theory in New York since every individual sought for sanitary information of all restaurants that they were interested in. They not only used the grade cards but also went on the internet to check the sanitary report of the restaurant. Therefore, in dealing with the first level restaurant, it had to maintain high hygienic standards. These are needed for good customer service and promotion of sale of the food stuffs. In general, there has been reduced level of hospitalization and death among guests in restaurants in the New York City. We need to come up with ways to improve our first class restaurants such as increasing the frequency of appearance of the guests and profit maximization. In addition, we have to maintain the hygienic level of our restaurants and captivity of the guests. Through these divisions, we appreciate the importance of having a grading system References Colgan, J. (July 15, 2010). Will restaurant grades change where New Yorkers dine? Retrieved from http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2010/jul/15/will-restaurant-grades- change-where-new-yorkers-dine/ Dunn, R. (2010). Behavioral activation for depression: A clinicians guide. London: The Guilford press. EHA Consulting Group, INC. (n.d). Making the grade in New York: Navigating the restaurant ABC grading system. Retrieved from http://www.ehagroup.com/food-safety/new-york- abc-restaurant-grading/ Farley, T. (2011). Restaurant letter grading: The first year. Retrieved from http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/rii/restaurant-grading-1-year-report.pdf Glazer, H. (2011). High performance operations: Leverage compliance to lower costs, increase profits, and gain competitive advantage (FT Press Operations Management). New York: FT press publishers. Jensen, D. (2010). ABC’s for NYC: New restaurant rating system should consider sustainability. Retrieved from http://news.change.org/stories/abcs-for-nyc-new-restaurant-rating- system-should-consider-sustainability Jones, L. (1998). The Path: Creating your mission statement for work and for life. New York: Hyperion publishers. Kleen, G. (2009). Profit and wages: A study in the distribution of income. New York: BiblioBazaar publishers. Lawn, J. (2010). Grading NYCs new health inspection policy. Food Management, 45(6), 70-72. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Matthews, K., & Writer, A. P. (2010, July 28). NYC restaurants get ready to learn their ABCs. The Associated Press State & Local Wire. Sabatini, P. (January 9, 2011). New rating system for restaurant cleanliness: Does it protect the public? Retrieved from http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11009/1116420-28.stm Saxena, J. (January 18, 2011). Gramercy Tavern among 574 restaurants stalling “C” grades. Retrieved from http://gothamist.com/2011/01/18/gramercy_tavern_among_650_restauran.php Thomas, F. (2011). Letter grading for sanitary inspections: What it means for restaurants and consumers. Retrieved from http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/rii/restaurant- grading-faq.pdf Read More