From 7-11 and Sushi Ebisuya to Hele Gas and Gina’s Lunch Wagon, all places serving food on the Big Island have one thing in common: a color-coded placard displayed in their window.
The placards, a state Department of Health initiative that began in February 2014, are an immediate visual cue, allowing people to know before entering whether the establishment has met state food safety standards.
Before 2014, the only way for a consumer to know this basic information was to make a field trip.
“There was no public notification before,” said Peter Oshiro, DOH environmental health program manager. “You could still get it, but you’d have to come into our office.”
At the same time the placard system was instituted, the Hawaii food safety code was tightened to eliminate vague phrasing and shore up basic safety procedures.
Under the old standards, permits could be renewed every two years, not annually. Bare hand contact for ready-to-eat foods such as sandwiches and salads was to be “minimized,” as long as hands were properly washed, and serving items such as sashimi, sushi and undercooked meat was “allowed without advisory.”
The current standards ban bare hand contact — gloves or tongs must be used — and require written notice on menus of the increased risk of food-borne illnesses.
The new rules and the placard program stem from Oahu’s struggles to maintain a manageable inspector-to-food establishment ratio. The Big Island has about 1,700 facilities and eight inspectors divided among East Hawaii and West Hawaii.
“The Big Island has been lucky,” Oshiro said. “The staff has been stable out there.”
In 2011, Oshiro said, Oahu had just nine people in the field.
“That was when we realized we really need to build this program back up,” he said. Today, there are 32 positions on Oahu.
Implementing the new program was made possible with help from the Hawaii Restaurant Association and by increasing restaurant permit fees.
Before the rules went into effect, the DOH conducted classes throughout the state and scheduled individual trainings for restaurants whose owners were unable to attend.
“We try to educate the restaurant so they know why we’re doing all of this,” said East Hawaii DOH sanitarian Curtis Takai, who has been an inspector for 22 years. “I know that we are regulatory, they know that, but we’re also here to help educationally.”
On a recent Thursday, Takai stopped by Liko Lehua Cafe in Downtown Hilo for the restaurant’s regular inspection (inspections normally are unannounced, but on this occasion owners were notified because a reporter would be shadowing Takai).
“I usually come at different times of the day,” Takai said. “So you can see different phases of operation (like) morning prep or busy lunch.”
Restaurants that do all of their own prep work receive three inspections per year. A green Pass placard from Takai’s previous Liko Lehua inspection, back in August, was on the door.
There are three levels of placard: green, yellow and red. Since the program began, there have been no red placards — indicating an immediate health hazard such as lack of hot water or a vermin infestation — issued to Big Island establishments. Statewide, red placards have only been issued on Oahu.
In the first half of 2016, East Hawaii had 314 green placards and 21 yellow placards issued.
A yellow placard indicates that two or more major violations have been observed during a routine inspection or a major violation remains uncorrected after the inspection. Once yellow has been posted, a business has two days to correct its error. A follow-up inspection then takes place.
“The green placard is not a bonus,” Oshiro said. “That’s the minimal expectation.”
Most violations found since the new regulations went into effect are behavior related.
“Washing hands,” Oshiro said. “But also making sure that the hand wash station always has soap and paper towels. You cannot wash your hands properly if there’s no soap and hot water.”
Viruses such as hepatitis A, the most recent food-borne outbreak to strike Hawaii, can spread because of improper hand washing (the source of that outbreak was ultimately found to be scallops).
Inside Liko Lehua, Takai washed his hands at the station in the kitchen and did a walk through to see if there was any new equipment since the last visit. He unfolded a digital thermometer and tested the temperatures of sliced tomatoes and feta cheese that were cooling in containers of a prep station.
The tomatoes were 38 degrees; the feta was 40 degrees. Cold food must be kept at a temperature of 41 degrees or below. Hot food must be 135 degrees or more.
“With some of the microorganisms out there — anything between 41 and 135 (degrees) is the danger zone,” Takai said. “That’s when things can grow (in food).”
Before 2014, the minimum standards were 45 degrees and 140 degrees.
In order to meet the new temperature standards, “People had to replace a lot of (refrigerator) units with commercial ones,” Oshiro said. “Home use units are designed to be opened and closed only a few times a day … in a commercial setting, every two seconds it’s opening.”
“The ultimate goal is for all places to have a commercial fridge,” Takai said. Some places still use home units to keep fruits and vegetables crisp.
“Our (priorities are) all related to safety,” Takai said. “Theirs is both safety and quality because without quality, nobody will come eat.”
He continued the inspection by checking to see that tubs of food in the walk-in fridge were properly labeled with storage dates, testing chlorine levels in a dishwasher unit and watching as a fillet of mahimahi was prepared (temperature: 156 to 170 degrees) and several beef patties were grilled for loco mocos (temperature: 184 degrees).
Takai made notes on an inspection sheet and finally sat down at a table to finish up the report. He left a new green Pass placard in the window.
By this time next year, all of Takai’s inspection notes will be done electronically, on a laptop. The final step in the DOH’s program is the creation of a web portal where all state inspection results can be viewed “from anywhere in the world,” Takai said.
Oahu’s portal launched this spring. The Neighbor Islands are expected to be online by the end of the year.
The combined goal of the online portal and the placards is to push restaurants toward voluntary compliance, Oshiro said.
“They realized that hanging a green placard in front of their business is good for their business,” he said. “It’s like an endorsement.”
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.