Foodservice and Retail Unit

Professor-in-charge: Dr. Jeannie Sneed

The mission of the Retail Foodservice Unit is to coordinate teaching, research, and extension/outreach to meet the needs of students, consumers and the foodservice industry to ensure the safe preparation and service of food.

Food safety has been an important area of teaching, research, and outreach for the Hotel, Restaurant, and Institution Management (HRIM) program since it began more than 75 years ago. Several researchers have conducted and published research related to consumer food safety and food safety in operations such as school foodservices. HRIM has an active cooperative extension program that has provided educational programming related to food safety for over 25 years. These programs have been provided to employees in school foodservice, healthcare foodservice, college and university foodservice, and restaurants. The Food Safety Project and the Food Safety web sites provide a current focus for food safety activities. In addition, regional extension nutrition and health field specialists have been trained to teach ServSafe®, a nationally-recognized food safety certification program, and are teaching the program in their areas. HRIM Extension has been involved in planning and teaching in the Summer Institute for School Foodservice, in cooperation with the Iowa Bureau of Food and Nutrition.

Faculty members in HRIM have established working relationships with organizations such as USDA, the National Food Service Management Institute (NFSMI), the School Food Service Foundation (SFSF), the Food Safety Consortium, Iowa Hospitality Association, Iowa Department of Inspection and Appeals, and Iowa Bureau of Food and Nutrition.

The Iowa State University Food Safety web site (http://www.extension.iastate.edu/foodsafety/) was established in 1995 and is maintained in the HRIM Extension program. HRIM Extension faculty also maintain the Food Safety Consortium web site. These web sites provide educational programs for consumers, foodservice operators, and meat processors related to foodborne pathogens, critical control points, HACCP plans, food irradiation, and biotechnology. Affiliated faculty and their areas of research are listed below.