Food Focus November 2008
Making food safety a winner at Rugby World Cup 2011
Seeing the All Blacks reign victorious at Rugby World Cup 2011 is the main concern for most Kiwis when New Zealand gets to host the event. However, NZFSA Assistant Director (Food Service, Sale & Import) Glen Neal’s paramount interest is making sure everyone enjoys the event without getting sick from the food they eat. Experiencing the All Blacks lift the William Webb Ellis Cup once again would, of course, be the icing on the cake, he says
Food safety at large sporting events is vital for players and punters alike. The All Blacks’ heartbreaking loss in the 1995 World Cup final in South Africa was attributed by the coach to a bout of food poisoning that swept through the Kiwi camp in the days before the match. And food poisoning also grabbed the headlines after the 2006 All Blacks vs Ireland test at Eden Park when 376 corporate guests fell ill with the gastrobug norovirus after being served raw, thawed Korean oysters contrary to cooking instructions. The incident is believed to be New Zealand’s largest ever single outbreak of foodborne illness.
Glen says that work has already started in earnest to avoid a repeat of episodes like this at Rugby World Cup 2011. “We obviously don’t want the ghost of 1995 to hang over this event. You can just imagine Dan Carter lining up a sideline conversion in the dying stages of the final – New Zealand versus whoever, it doesn’t really matter – and he has to run off to vomit because he had a dodgy salad the night before.”
Getting the standards right
The company set up to operationally deliver the tournament, Rugby New Zealand 2011 (RNZ 2011), has identified hospitality as one of the critical work streams they need to focus on in preparation for the event. Key players involved in the hospitality industry, including some of the country’s largest caterers, stadium operators and training institutions as well as NZFSA, have already attended the first workshop aimed at identifying the goals that must be met to ensure everyone helping to feed the masses has the appropriate food safety knowledge and the right skills.
“Food safety and rugby world cups are certainly inextricably linked”, Glen says. “Rugby these days is not just about 50,000 people rolling up to the stadium to have a good time watching the game. There’s a significant hospitality component that occurs – from temporary marquees at the venues through to hot dog stands along the way – and it’s our job to ensure people can eat, drink and be merry without any worries. New Zealand is going to be on the sporting world stage – and on stage from both a tourism and hospitality perspective, so we want to avoid any negative publicity.”
The collaboration between the parties involved with supplying food to the event will concentrate on working out the training and verification necessary to get the standards right. Glen says there are considerable synergies between the work currently going ahead on the voluntary implementation of Food Control Plans and getting people in the industry up-skilled to deal with the crowds that will attend the World Cup.
The emphasis at this juncture is ensuring the correct standards are in place. A key part of this will involve training – of which food safety will be a pivotal component. This will deliver the necessary ‘shot in the arm’ for improved food safety that the domestic food review has called for.
RNZ 2011 wants to create a legacy for New Zealand from the tournament. The revised regulatory programme could see that legacy sustained and continuously improved over an enduring period.
“C’mon Black.”