Global Glove Safety Day
Every September 18, during the National Food Safety Education Month, we observe Global Glove Safety Day, a growing movement to expose overlooked risks in food handling and protect consumers with safer glove practices.
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The Leadership of an Icon
Global Glove Safety Day is led by Eagle Protect in partnership with food safety icon Dr. Darin Detwiler. After losing his 16-month-old son, Riley, to an E. coli infection in 1993, Dr. Detwiler has emerged as one of the nation’s leading advocates for food safety reform.
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This year’s message is clear: “Don’t assume gloved hands are clean hands.” It’s a direct challenge to the assumptions that all gloves are safe.
Wearing gloves is supposed to protect food and people, but the reality is alarming. Too many gloves entering the U.S. are contaminated before they’re even used, putting lives and businesses at risk. Poor-quality gloves are prone to rip and can transmit harmful “glove juice” (a mix of sweat and poor hand hygiene), shed glove pieces into food and drain budgets through waste and downtime.
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When Gloves Become The Risk
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The U.S. uses more than 100 billion gloves annually, much of them without any regulatory testing. A 2024 peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Food Protection found gloves contaminated with E. coli, Listeria, and even Anthrax. Nearly 50% of tested gloves carried fecal indicator organisms — clear evidence that contamination starts long before gloves handle food. In an effort to reduce costs, companies may unknowingly purchase defective gloves with rips and defects which compromises food safety and puts food handlers and the public at risk.
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“We assume gloves protect us. But assumptions don’t stop pathogens. Standards do.” - Dr. Darin Detwiler
The Fix is in Our Hands
We know what works. It starts with four essential steps:
- Challenge the status quo: food safety starts with procurement. Demand glove performance, not just price.
- Insist on tested glove durability and performance
- Train food handling teams to use gloves safely and change them correctly
- Demand transparency: only use third-party tested gloves from established suppliers
You wouldn’t wash your hands in dirty water. Why accept gloves that are manufactured in it?” - Steve Ardagh, CEO, Eagle Protect
A Call to Action for the Food Industry
Prepared food is built on trust. Gloves are the frontline in protecting that trust. Global Glove Safety Day is a chance to consider your glove safety.
We invite food safety leaders, procurement teams and QA departments in food handling and preparation to re-examine the blind trust placed in gloves. Are yours tested? Are they safe?
Because food safety is personal.
“The cost of silence is counted in lives. Let’s not wait until contamination ends in tragedy to act.” - Dr. Darin Detwiler
Download the Glove Best Practices Guide
Protect your business and your customers with our free Glove Best Practices Guide—a concise, actionable resource to help QA and food safety teams, as well as procurement managers to select, use and manage gloves with food safety as the priority. The Glove Best Practices is the ideal addition for your food safety plan.
