Operations

Fazoli's wins 2020 Excellence in Food Safety Award

Chipotle and Five Guys took home honorable mention for their efforts.

May 28, 2020

Fazoli's was the 2020 winner of FastCasual's Excellence in Food Safety Award, which honors restaurants going the extra mile to protect their customers and employees by providing outstanding food safety.

CEO Carl Howard accepted last week during the live Fast Casual Top 100 Movers and Shakers virtual event, which revealed the industry's most innovative brands of the year.  

To facilitate the second annual Excellence in Food Safety Awards, Fast Casual partnered with Steritech, a company that helps restaurants develop programs that mitigate food safety risk, drive operational consistency and accelerate growth.

The selection process began with a nomination survey in which brands could be nominated by a brand representative, franchisee, employee, vendor or customer. Nominees provided information about their food safety culture, policies, practices and innovations.

A third-party marketing consultancy and research firm then conducted an independent assessment of the nominations to determine how they aligned with foundational food safety behaviors laid out in Steritech's 7 Pillars of Food Safety Excellence:

1. Senior Leadership Commitment and Engagement.
2. Food Safety Communications.
3. Defined Standards & Procedures.
4. Training.
5. KPIs / Scorecard.
6. Oversight Program.
7. Positive Recognition.

Based on this assessment, a group of semi-finalists was selected. The consultancy group then conducted in-depth interviews with these semi-finalists to determine the overall winners.

Fazoli's came out on top with Five Guys and Chipotle earning honorable mention.

"The three selected winners demonstrate that with the right mindset and focus, organizations of every size can successfully create dynamic food-safety cultures that put customer safety first," FastCasual Editor Cherryh Cansler said.

Kerry Bridges, Chipotle's VP of Food Safety, also said a few words during the Top 100 gala on behalf of Chipotle's food-safety honorable mention. Watch below.

2020 Food Safety Award - Chipotle from Networld Media Group Events on Vimeo.

Steritech and FastCasual also worked together to create the "2020 Excellence in Food Safety" report, which not only shares the winners' food-safety strategies but also includes information to help other brands improve their own food-safety protocols. Download it for free here.

To see which brands made this year's FastCasual Top 100 Movers and Shakers download the free Top 100 report, sponsored by Oracle, here.