The Romaine Ingredient: Food Safety Facts for Restaurants

2 Min Read By Wade Winters

"Ask the Expert" features advice from Wade Winters, Vice President of Supply Chain for Consolidated Concepts Inc.

Please send questions for this column to Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine Executive Editor Barbara Castiglia at bcastiglia@modernrestaurantmanagement.com.

Q:  With all the concern about romaine lettuce, what are best practices for a restaurateur who has romaine as a base of menu items? How do you turnaround if you have to stop serving it? Should you avoid it to allay fears? And, how do you relate your food purchasing to your guests? Where should restaurateurs go to get information when cases like this happen to make themselves aware so they can respond? Is it building good supply-chain relationships?

 

A: As of April 20, 2018, the FDA expanded warnings from an ongoing E. coli investigation related to romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Ariz.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 53 people in 16 states were sickened by the outbreak since…