Food Establishment Best Practices for Providing Consumer Purchase Information for a Foodborne Illness Investigation

Every year in the United States there are millions of cases of foodborne illness and a majority of these cases are attributable to food establishments (Jones & Angulo, 2006). Investigation of these reports of illness is of paramount importance to a) stop additional people from being exposed and becoming ill; b) understand the system failure within a food establishment that led people to become ill; and c) identify a source of contaminated food that may have entered the food establishment. In addition, quickly identifying the source of outbreaks through purchase records is crucial to identify the specific product so that public health advisories can warn consumers to avoid certain implicated products instead of broad categories (such as Romaine, tomatoes, or papayas). Such advisories have an enormous economic impact on the food sector and retail food establishments. Solving outbreaks quickly using consumer purchase records also reduces the number of people that may become ill and subsequent industry liability.

Rapid and effective information sharing between the food industry and government officials helps to solve foodborne outbreaks and may prevent additional illnesses. Public health officials at the local, state, and federal level may request consumer food purchase data to investigate foodborne illness/outbreaks. This information is used to identify the food in common between ill people which may determine what made them sick. As the process to identify which ill people are part of an outbreak may take several weeks, this leads to incomplete food history recall by the ill person. Investigators request consumer purchase information from food establishments after they obtain details about the food purchased during the public health interview. This helps to bridge these gaps in food history. This information may also be used to trace the product through the supply chain to determine when and where it was produced which may lead to a faster removal of a contaminated food from sale. The time frame and scope of the request will vary based on several factors, including the shelf life of the product.

For more information about how food purchase history information is used to investigate outbreaks please visit https://www.afdo.org/resources/purchase-history/.