Food Poisoning Reporting at Prominent US Restaurant Chains. Report rates per location vs. benchmark in 2023 [OC]
September 3, 2024
Food Poisoning Reporting at Prominent US Restaurant Chains. Report rates per location vs. benchmark in 2023 [OC]
Posted by iwaspoisoned-com
13 comments
Source: Data compiled from 108,000+ consumer reports on [iwaspoisoned.com](https://iwaspoisoned.com) (2023) and SEC 10-K filings. The benchmark is comprised of over 70,000 restaurant locations across all U.S. states, including household name brands such as Burger King, Taco Bell, and more. For detailed methodology, visit [docs.dinesafe.com.](https://docs.dinesafe.com)
Bunch of fresh, uncooked ingredients at Sweetgreen. Makes sense.
Never heard of sweatgreen
Reports per location is a biased metric, right? High volume locations like fast food will have more reports per location than a lower volume seller like AppleBees if both locations had the same odds of food poisoning per buyer.
Thus, high volume companies like McDonald’s may have a lower odds of food poisoning per order than low volume/high count stores like Subway but such a chart would show them as higher odds.
That said, WTF Sweetgreen – you are almost certainly the lowest volume per location in this list.
Where does chipotle rank. They had a few salmonella issues over the years
The obvious culprit is leafy greens, but for a variety of reasons. One is that cross contamination from meats, temps, and dates are drilled into service industry staff relentlessly. The health department checks those above all else. On the other hand, after 18 years in the industry, I can tell you that most restaurants aren’t properly washing their vegetables before use, if washing them at all. Add on to that the relentless training on raw meats causes far more hand washing and glove changing versus handling vegetables. I would bet that a place that specializes in salads may see 1/10 of the glove use that a restaurant handling raw meats constantly. A line cook will put on a glove, throw down a ticket of meats, remove, and repeat as necessary 100 times in a shift while someone making salads may keep them on for a dozen orders or more. Less glove changes also means less hand washing. And finally leafy greens are a hot bed for e coli and listeria.
I suspect sweetgreen is using a decent amount of precut fruits and veggies, those products have uncomfortably high rates of contamination.
I don’t eat precut fruits because of how often they are the source of outbreaks of stuff like salmonella.
The Benchmark Index is in the wrong place.
What the fuck is a sweetgreen
There is an obvious correlation between cooking and food borne illness here
Pizza ovens are around 700f they annihilate any bacteria, rendering most products Pizza Hut sells very safe. Sweet greens cooks none of their products, so any bacteria remains throughout the production process
Ditto for Dairy Queen and ice cream, while McDonald’s fries most stuff.
Subway is a weird outlier
Sweetgreen should pan cook their salads for safety.
Further reassurance im blessed to have a mum who taught me to cook & never rely on fast foods because they are junk.
13 comments
Source: Data compiled from 108,000+ consumer reports on [iwaspoisoned.com](https://iwaspoisoned.com) (2023) and SEC 10-K filings. The benchmark is comprised of over 70,000 restaurant locations across all U.S. states, including household name brands such as Burger King, Taco Bell, and more. For detailed methodology, visit [docs.dinesafe.com.](https://docs.dinesafe.com)
Tools: MySQL, Sheets, Looker, Canva
For further insights, check out the related [LinkedIn article.](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/food-safety-benchmarking-powered-consumer-insights-dinesafe-huv5c/)
What the fuck is going on at sweetgreen
Bunch of fresh, uncooked ingredients at Sweetgreen. Makes sense.
Never heard of sweatgreen
Reports per location is a biased metric, right? High volume locations like fast food will have more reports per location than a lower volume seller like AppleBees if both locations had the same odds of food poisoning per buyer.
Thus, high volume companies like McDonald’s may have a lower odds of food poisoning per order than low volume/high count stores like Subway but such a chart would show them as higher odds.
That said, WTF Sweetgreen – you are almost certainly the lowest volume per location in this list.
Where does chipotle rank. They had a few salmonella issues over the years
The obvious culprit is leafy greens, but for a variety of reasons. One is that cross contamination from meats, temps, and dates are drilled into service industry staff relentlessly. The health department checks those above all else. On the other hand, after 18 years in the industry, I can tell you that most restaurants aren’t properly washing their vegetables before use, if washing them at all. Add on to that the relentless training on raw meats causes far more hand washing and glove changing versus handling vegetables. I would bet that a place that specializes in salads may see 1/10 of the glove use that a restaurant handling raw meats constantly. A line cook will put on a glove, throw down a ticket of meats, remove, and repeat as necessary 100 times in a shift while someone making salads may keep them on for a dozen orders or more. Less glove changes also means less hand washing. And finally leafy greens are a hot bed for e coli and listeria.
I suspect sweetgreen is using a decent amount of precut fruits and veggies, those products have uncomfortably high rates of contamination.
I don’t eat precut fruits because of how often they are the source of outbreaks of stuff like salmonella.
The Benchmark Index is in the wrong place.
What the fuck is a sweetgreen
There is an obvious correlation between cooking and food borne illness here
Pizza ovens are around 700f they annihilate any bacteria, rendering most products Pizza Hut sells very safe. Sweet greens cooks none of their products, so any bacteria remains throughout the production process
Ditto for Dairy Queen and ice cream, while McDonald’s fries most stuff.
Subway is a weird outlier
Sweetgreen should pan cook their salads for safety.
Further reassurance im blessed to have a mum who taught me to cook & never rely on fast foods because they are junk.