Break the Chain: The Greatest Food Safety Risks May Be the Ones We've Normalized

This summer, millions of international visitors have traveled across the United States for major sporting events, documenting oversized restaurant portions, free refills, ranch dressing, barbecue and other uniquely American food traditions one smartphone video at a time. These videos are entertaining and remind us that food is one of our most powerful cultural ambassadors.

At the same time, other food-related videos have been attracting attention online: dogs in grocery carts, dogs sitting at restaurant tables and untrained pets accompanying owners through food stores and dining areas. The comments often reveal “dog fatigue” as consumers question whether every pet belongs in every public space.

At first glance, these two viral threads seem unrelated. One celebrates food culture. The other fuels debate. Yet both reveal how quickly behaviors become normalized simply because we see them repeatedly.

For food safety professionals, normalization deserves attention. Some hazards remain hidden. Others sit in plain sight, becoming so familiar that we stop evaluating them critically.

Food safety history is filled with risks accepted because they seemed routine. Sanitation shortcuts, maintenance delays, poor hygiene practices and weak preventive controls can persist for months or years before finally contributing to an outbreak.

The danger is becoming so accustomed to a behavior that we stop recognizing the contamination pathways it may create.

Cell phones provide a useful example. Many of us remember warnings about public pay phones, once considered among the most heavily touched surfaces in public spaces. Today’s smartphone has effectively replaced the pay phone as one of the most frequently touched objects in daily life.

Research shows that mobile devices commonly carry microorganisms because they travel everywhere we do. Phones move from homes to offices, from grocery stores to restaurants, and often into restrooms. They are touched countless times each day, frequently without any cleaning or sanitizing.

The concern is not that phones automatically cause illness. The concern is the pathway.

A food employee may wash their hands thoroughly after using the restroom and then immediately handle a phone that was touched before handwashing. In food safety terms, the phone can function as a reservoir, reintroducing contamination to clean hands that later contact food, utensils, equipment or food-contact surfaces. This is simply another form of cross-contamination.

The greatest concern is not a single transfer event. It is the repeated opportunities for transfer that occur throughout the day.

This principle is well understood throughout the food industry. Many establishments limit personal phone use during food preparation. Yet enforcement is often inconsistent because smartphones have become extensions of our personal and professional lives. They connect us to family, schedules, emergencies and the outside world.

As a result, their presence in food environments is often accepted without much thought.

A similar challenge exists with the growing presence of pets in food environments.

To be clear, this discussion is not about service animals. Service animals are trained to perform essential functions for individuals with disabilities and are protected under federal law. This discussion is about non-service animals that increasingly appear in grocery stores, shopping carts, checkout lines, restaurant patios and sometimes even indoor dining spaces.

Many consumers have become so accustomed to seeing pets in these settings that the practice barely registers anymore. Others have become vocal in expressing concerns about what they view as an erosion of boundaries between pet-friendly spaces and food environments.

Food safety professionals should approach the issue differently.

The question is not whether people love their pets. Most do. The question is whether food environments should be evaluated through a lens of convenience and emotion or through a lens of risk management.

A grocery cart is designed to transport food. A dining table is intended for food consumption. When pets occupy these spaces, they introduce opportunities for contamination through fur, paws, saliva, dander, fecal matter and contact with surfaces that others may subsequently touch.

That does not mean every pet creates a food safety incident. It does mean that food safety professionals should recognize the pathway.

This is where the discussion of phones and pets begins to intersect. People often become defensive when these topics are raised because they involve things they use, carry or care deeply about. Yet food safety has never been about judging intentions. It has always been about identifying and reducing preventable risks.

Food safety culture depends on our willingness to question routine behaviors before they become accepted vulnerabilities. The strongest food safety systems are not built by reacting to outbreaks after they occur. They are built by recognizing contamination pathways early and interrupting them before they result in harm.

Food safety has always been about identifying contamination pathways and interrupting them before they reach consumers. Break the chain.

The most dangerous risks are not always the ones hidden from view. Sometimes they are the ones we see every day and no longer question. That is the challenge of normalization. And recognizing it may be one of the most important preventive controls we have.