Q&A with St. Joseph County Director of Food Services Carolyn Smith
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The Indiana Department of Health’s updated rule on Retail Food Establishment Sanitation Requirements went into effect in April.
The new rules bring the state’s food code up to industry standards and aligns with the 2022 Food Code from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, providing a more comprehensive approach to protecting consumers from contaminated food and foodborne illness.
Inside INdiana Business spoke with St. Joseph County Food Services Director Carolyn Smith about enforcing the vital role of food services, the recent overhaul of Indiana’s Food Code and what the community can expect during this season of transition.
What’s the role of food services within the county?
We have oversight of the nearly 1,600 permitted entities offering prepared food that has to be temperature controlled for safety in St. Joseph County. It doesn’t mean that there’s 1,600 brick and mortar shops. For instance, Meijer has a food store and food service, those are two different permits. So that one building would be counted as two. A place like Family Dollar didn’t have refrigerated items, so they didn’t have to have a permit. Now you can run into a place like that and get a gallon of milk or a dozen eggs, so those have to be inspected as well.
Food services also include schools and convenience stores. There are six full-time inspectors, myself and the assistant director also do inspections. Frequency of inspection depends on their level of food preparation. Places like Hacienda that is cooking food ahead of time, freezing food, bringing food back up to temperature would be inspected more frequently than a McDonald’s that’s cooking and serving.
Does this also include people who cook food at home to sell?
Indiana designates those as home-based vendors. They are allowed to prepare certain items in their home. Those items are listed from the State Department of Health—things like cakes, cookies, jams, jellies, popcorn etc., that generally do not have to be temperature controlled for safety. They don’t have any oversight required from our department, unless there is a complaint.
A couple of years ago, the state expanded where they could offer those items from just a roadside stand at a farmer’s market, to fairs and festivals. So for Fusion Fest in September, home-based vendors can offer items with no oversight from us. They can’t sell it to a store that’s going to sell it to somebody. They have to be offering it directly to the end user. The expanded ability for them to reach their end user now includes delivery services like Uber Eats. So they have a lot more leeway in terms of how they can get those products to the end user. We have tons of home-based vendors. A number of people started that way and then expanded to a commercial site.
So what prompted the update to the Food Code?
It needed updating because it was 20 years old. The last update for Indiana was in 2004. The federal FDA code changes more frequently than that. So there have been changes ongoing and the state of Indiana was behind. Our current code that just got approved and implemented on the 16th of April is based on the 2022 Federal Food Code. It changes as industry changes and evolves to be in compliance with the most updated industry standards. Indiana was number two or three for the oldest code nationwide before this change. We have a list of 26 readily identifiable changes, that’s about 35% change from the old code. There are a few changes in terminology.
Under the old code, we designated compliance status by critical or non-critical. Now the designations for violation cited are priority, priority-foundation or core. So a temperature violation of hot food that’s not maintained at 135 degrees would have been designated as a critical violation, now it’s a priority violation. The requirement for hot food being hot didn’t change but how it is communicated and cited has changed. So those are the major things that staff are working on communicating in terms of education.
Everything that could be a violation now has to be rated “in” if in compliance, “out” if out of compliance, “not observed” or “not applicable” if the metric does not apply to that establishment. It is going to initially lengthen the time that the inspector is in an establishment. There’s an educational piece for owners, operators and managers. It’s also a new way of doing things as far as the inspectors are concerned.
Smith talks about why the updated food code has been a long time coming.
How are you rolling out the educational pieces that you mentioned?
As we visited in the last six months of 2024, we made the establishment aware that changes were coming. A lot of the establishments themselves need to have a certified Food Protection Manager. They have gone through national organizations for training and are aware of a lot of the things that are now in place in our code. “Temperature Controlled for Safety” is a term that’s been used for several years now in the FDA code. Before the actual effective date, we rolled out emails to all of our establishments in St. Joseph County with a copy of the top 26 changes.
Now we are looking at trying to coordinate town hall meetings so that establishments can meet with our staff one-on-one and have questions answered. We are looking at having a virtual piece to that as well, following what the state has done. The state has instructed all of the regulatory authorities in Indiana that from this point until the end of the year, it’s education rather than enforcement. If we go in and your temperatures for hot or cold holding are not compliant, then that is something we’re going to cite because this isn’t new. How we communicate it to you is new but the requirement is not new.
What are some of the changes in the new code?
One of the new code requirements is handwashing signage. People know that hand washing is required but signage wasn’t mandatory before. Now, if you don’t have signage, we’re just going to talk to you about it. If you still don’t have the signage for hand washing in January, then that will be cited. If a customer or an employee has an issue that causes vomiting or diarrhea, there is a piece in the updated code that specifically talks about how that is supposed to be handled as well.
But we want to let the community know there isn’t going to be any decrease in safety and food protection during this period. They don’t have to worry about that because core things haven’t changed.
What gives you confidence moving through this transition?
My staff and I have over 100 years of experience combined. I and the assistant director were here 20 years ago when we had the last update. So I’m confident that we’re going to get through this together. Establishments are going to have the information they need to continue to do their jobs, so that we can serve and protect those citizens and visitors to St. Joseph County who come to eat. We have a lot of food establishments and a lot of people take pride in what they do in terms of serving the public good, safe and sanitary food. So even though we have this change, that’s not going to be compromised in any way.