Super inspections help keep food safe

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - With just one day remaining until the opening of the NFL Experience and the Super Bowl Village, work is now under way to make sure all the food being served there is Super safe.

From pizza to pretzels and burgers to brats, there will be lots of different foods and vendors for Marion County Health Department inspectors to be concerned with.

“We’ve divided the downtown district — what we call ‘the clean zone’ into seven districts, with two inspectors in each district,” said Kelli Whiting, coordinator of temporary events for the Health Department’s Division of Food and Consumer Safety. “We have more than 230 standing food establishments in the clean zone and 30 temporary food vendors in and around the Super Bowl Village.”

That includes restaurants, bars, outdoor food carts and tents downtown. Inspectors will also be in charge of regulating food safety at Super Bowl-related parties in Broad Ripple, Fountain Square and along Massachusetts Avenue.

“Code enforcement has also licensed 22 food trucks that will set up on Monument Circle. We’ll then be inspecting them as well,” Whiting said.

The food trucks will be catering to patrons from around 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day.

“Anyone who wanted to be a part of the [clean zone] had to register 30 days before [the event], and each food vendor has to have a temporary event license,” Whiting said.

Health department inspectors will then make sure everything is up to the county’s food safety code.

With approximately 4,700 other eateries across the county still scheduled for regular yearly inspections, Marion County Health Department spokesman John Althardt says the agency will likely be calling in some reinforcements for the Super Bowl. Food safety inspectors from other surrounding health departments across Central Indiana will begin walking the clean zone Thursday, making sure the proper temporary licenses are in place at each establishment. On Friday, they will begin breaking out their clipboards and kits — armed with everything from thermometers and alkaline test strips to bio-hazard containers.

“We're going to use the Centers for Disease Controls’ top five risk factors for preventing foodborne illness. And that is: getting food from an approved source, good personal hygiene, cooking temperatures, holding temperatures as well as cross contamination. They have these different items they need to check at every food establishment, and they're concentrating on the five risk factors for preventing foodborne illness because we don't want people to get sick. That's what we need to hone in on,” Whiting said.

Whiting says every food vendor on the list will be inspected at least once over the next week. Any establishment found to have violations will be re-inspected following corrective action.

It's a plan the health department has been perfecting for the last several years.

“We reached out to Miami and Dallas to find out what they did. For whatever reasons, we didn’t get responses back from them. But, I have spoken with health departments in Arizona, who hosted the Super Bowl six years ago. They’ve given us some valuable advice,” Whiting said.

One piece of it is aimed at fans.

“We want you to wash your hands, early and often,” Whiting said. “That’s the best way to help prevent the spread of disease.”

Asked if inspectors are ready for the challenges ahead, Whiting quickly nodded.

“We feel like we're prepared for everything. We're an event city. It's like a big weekend — the same weekend I have Moto GP, a county fair and 15 other events. So, we're ready.”