Fine Dining Is Safe Dining

How the hospitality industry is adapting to new standards of food safety before reopening

- Ariana Maralit

In Contagion (2011), the movie’s ending scene chronicles the spillover event of a pandemic through a disturbing montage of a bat contaminating a pigpen that delivers to a kitchen of a high-end casino in Macau, where we could later see a mix of foreigners playing, including Gwyneth Paltrow’s character—America’s patient zero.

Sounds familiar? In the real setting, the spread of SARS-CoV could be blamed on the lack of food sanitation in the province of Wuhan, China, proving how food has a big impact on viral transmission, or is even at the epicenter of concern for the birth of an outbreak.

This is why restaurants, hotels, and eateries are the last to re-operate public in-house services and gatherings in the gradual process of economic recovery. The sectors are very busy carefully laying out plans for effective food handling to ensure everyone’s safety as soon as they reopen doors to welcome guests and diners.

The Department of Tourism (DOT) and Enderun Colleges clue us in on what the hospitality industry and tourism-accredited establishments are doing on their path to the “New Normal on Food Safety, Sanitation, and Hygiene” through a series of Zoom conferences.

Here are a couple of points discussed about F&B safety. After all, restaurants are the only public place you’re allowed to take your mask off.

Their main goal is to restore your confidence.