When your company is in the business of serving, handling or processing food, you can’t take chances when it comes to safety. Abiding by food safety regulations isn’t simply a nice-to-have, it’s a must. And on the front lines of food safety are disposable gloves - the products that touch your food! Today, we’re diving into the devastating effects one poor quality disposable food safety glove can have on your business’s employees, products, customers and brand.
An estimated 76 million cases of foodborne illness occur in the US each year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths, with an overall cost estimated to be between $10 - $83 billion.
These statistics should startle you. To say these are enormous numbers wouldn’t be doing ‘billions’ justice. The takeaway is that food safety issues in the food industry aren’t rare, they’re rampant. If you haven’t had to deal with the negative effects of violating food safety regulations at your company, you’re one of the lucky ones -- but make no mistake, with such a large number of employee, customer and food interaction every single day, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.
Unfortunately, foodborne illness isn’t the only way poor quality disposable safety gloves can hurt your business. It’s best to know the ways your business can be hurt from poor quality food safety products so that you’re better able to steer away from these pitfalls.
Here are five of the most common ways:
1. Contamination from the Wrong Glove
It’s important to understand that there’s not one glove for every job -- oftentimes, food contamination can be avoided simply by using the right disposable glove for the job. In the disposable food safety glove industry, there are three leading types of disposable gloves (nitrile, latex and vinyl), and each type has their own subsets. Tensile strength, flexibility, puncture resistance and allergens are all important factors you should use to base your decision. We recommend researching these different disposable food safety glove types to curb food contamination before it starts. (Read about vinyl glove limitations here).
2. Broken Gloves Lead To Product Recalls
If you break a food safety law or if there’s a claim brought against your product (such as pieces of disposable gloves found in packaged food), then food safety regulators will have a strong case to recall your products at your business’s expense. There is no limit to the size of a recall. We’ve seen companies penalized by recalling millions of pounds of packaged food. These recalls can be avoided with a higher quality disposable food safety glove that won’t rip or tear while your employees are doing their jobs.
3. Unnecessary Fines
The most common retaliatory tactic for food safety regulators to take on a business who violated food safety law is to fine the business. These fines can be detrimental to the health of the company due to the sheer size of the fine. If one thing is for sure, you don’t want to be the business who has to help pay a slice of the annual $10 - $83 billion dollar foodborne illness health bill.
4. Hurt Reputation
Fines and product recalls are tangible and quantifiable effects, but a very important metric that cannot be measured from a single poor quality disposable food safety glove is the lasting effects it has on your business. Depending on the size of the violation, numerous headlines may be shadowing your company for weeks or months, and if you don’t have the extra revenue to hire a PR firm, there’s no telling how deep these headlines will cut into your reputation. You do not want to be caught publicly violating food safety regulation because it tests the trust you have with your employees and customers. It’s better to nip this in the bud by using the highest quality food safety disposables.
5. Business Closing
Fines, product recalls and a tarnished reputation can result in the worst case scenario for any owner, your business closing. The negative effects of one disposable food safety glove cannot be understated. If you’re a company dealing in the foodservice, food handling or food processing industries, saving a few pennies on cheap disposable food safety gloves will not in any way benefit your business. We strongly advise you to use high quality disposable food safety products, like those sold by Eagle Protect. It will have lasting effects on the strength of your brand and company.
Eagle Protect supplies the highest quality disposable food safety products in the industry. A range of Eagle gloves have been Delta Zero verified by a third-party lab to ensure they meet the highest standards of safety and performance. Every food safety product is responsibly sourced and our manufacturing facilities are regularly checked for premium quality. Food safety regulation is no joke, and there is no better move you can make for your products, employees, customers and brand than to order from the most trusted supplier in the disposable food safety industry.
Request a commercial trial from one of our food safety experts today!
