THUNDER BAY - Restaurants around Thunder Bay have cleaned up their act according to the Thunder Bay District Health Unit.
The DineWise safety program was launched in 2017 after bylaws forced businesses who serve food to the public to post a scorecard displaying their most recent food inspection grade.
During the program’s pilot stage at the beginning of 2017, only 42 per cent of restaurants qualified for an A grade.
By the end of 2017, when data was last collected by TBHU, the number rose to 87 per cent.
“The standard now, due to public pressure, is really at an A grade,” manager of environmental health Lee Sieswerda said.
Restaurants that score between 90 to 100 points on a the health unit's regulated health inspection are qualified to receive an A.
Inspections are scored on the basis of infractions which present a risk to food safety. For each infraction a restaurant commits, points are deducted downwards from 100.
“Minor infractions are things that are not immediate threats, like dirty floors... and then critical infractions are things like temperature abuse which are an immediate threat to food safety,“ Sieswerda explained.
Any restaurant that has committed a critical infraction - indicating a high potential to contribute to food poisoning - is disqualified from an A grade as they are deducted 15 points.
“The grade reflects the degree of non-compliance with food safety regulations, and the severity of it,” Sieswerda said.
The most recent data indicates that restaurants commit an average of four critical infraction per 100 inspections, down from 30 critical infractions per 100 inspections during the pilot period.
Minor or major infractions have also gone down significantly.
“Anecdotally, the feedback we’ve gotten from citizens are that they’re very happy with the system,” Sieswerda said.
During the pilot project, 202 restaurants were surveyed in comparison to 954 restaurants in the latest data collection.
Only 1.4 per cent of the 954 restaurants qualified for a C or D grade.
“We’re very gratified to find that public-facing signage has a tremendous effect on food safety.”
