State health officials and members of the restaurant industry plan to ask the legislature to update Tennessee’s 1976 food safety law next year, reports The Tennessean.
“Our rules are so old they don’t even address sushi,” said Hugh Atkins, who oversees restaurant inspections for the Tennessee Department of Health.
The Tennessee Food Safety Task Force first considered tweaking compliance rules but finally decided the law itself needed a complete overhaul.
The statute, more than three decades old, does not prohibit restaurant employees from fingering your food and lists temperature requirements for already-cooked dishes that can cause mashed potatoes to get crusty and meats to get leathery.
Task force members say the law wastes resources, falls short of federally recommended standards and can penalize restaurants that operate in older buildings. The temperature requirements for already-cooked foods have no safety benefit, Atkins said. Another requirement mandates that inspectors check a peanut and candy shop as often as a full-fledged restaurant, where the risk of a food-borne illness is much higher