Staff at Muchas Gracias receiving their certificate completing a comprehensive Food Safety Standardization exercise with Yolo County Environmental Health’s Retail Food Safety Program. Photo courtesy of Yolo County

WOODLAND, CA (MPG) - Yolo County Environmental Health’s Retail Food Safety Program has successfully completed a comprehensive Food Safety Standardization exercise in partnership with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), reinforcing the County’s commitment to protecting public health through consistent, high-quality food safety inspections.

As part of this effort, Yolo County Environmental Health Senior Inspector Valencia Scott successfully completed and passed a week-long audit designed to ensure inspections are conducted using a uniform, risk-based approach across all retail food establishments in Yolo County. Risk-based inspections prioritize the factors most likely to cause foodborne illness, including poor personal hygiene, food from unsafe sources, improper food holding temperatures, inadequate cooking, and contaminated equipment.

“We have found the audit with CDPH to be a valuable learning experience for both our staff and our food establishments.,” said Environmental Health Program Coordinator, Michelle Bilodeau. “In the coming months, we plan to provide additional training to the rest of our food inspection team to ensure consistent inspections that promote strong food safety practices and help reduce the risk of foodborne illness.”

To conduct the audit, Environmental Health partnered with eight food establishments throughout the county who volunteered their establishment to conduct this exercise. The participating establishments included Panda Express (Woodland location), Treasure Dragon (Woodland), Muchas Gracias (Woodland), Morgan’s on Main (Woodland), Bel Air (Woodland), the cafeteria at the Woodland Dignity Health Hospital, Savoury and Carl’s Jr. in West Sacramento. These collaborative inspections were conducted solely for training purposes and did not impact the establishments’ routine inspection scores or color-coded placards. To recognize their partnership and commitment to food safety, Yolo County Environmental Health will award each participating establishment a Certificate of Recognition.

Muchas Gracias restaurant of Woodland stated, “We were very happy to be part of the program and encourage more restaurants to participate. The safety of our customers and employees is our top priority. Through this program, we learned many new things that can sometimes be overlooked in daily operations, and we are grateful for the opportunity to strengthen our food safety practices. Thank you for helping us stay on top of best practices to ensure we are serving great and safe food.”

Environmental Health will continue staff training and standardization efforts over the next year to further strengthen inspection practices countywide.

Yolo County Environmental Health conducts routine annual and semi-annual inspections of all retail food facilities and makes inspection results publicly available online to promote transparency and consumer confidence. Food establishments interested in participating in future training exercises are encouraged to contact Environmental Health at [email protected].