 |
A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
| About Mark Hurst | Mark's Gel Conference | New York Times Story on This Is Broken | Newsletter: Subscribe | RSS Feed |
Search this site:
Categories:
- Advertising
- Current Affairs
- Customer Service
- Fixed
- Food and Drink
- Just for Fun
- Misc
- Not broken
- Place
- Product Design
- Signs
- Travel
- Web/Tech
Previous: AOL Music's average user rating | Main | Next: Kmart selection (just for fun)
April 19, 2005 12:01 AM
Broken: Cookie purchases
Staci DeMeo writes:
When getting cookies from a cookie shop, and the person behind the counter uses a piece of tissue paper to pick up the cookies and place them in a bag. I always wonder why that person places the piece of tissue paper in the bag with the cookies.
Isn't the tissue paper used for my protection against their germs? If the tissue paper that has been used for this purpose is placed in the bag with the cookies, which I am going to eat, why bother using the tissue paper at all?
The tissue paper is used, so that nobody has to touch the cookie with her or his hands - neither the person behind the counter nor you.
I'm always happy to see when they are wearing a plastic glove on one hand. (In these cases they don't use tissue paper.) Also very clean and tidy. All the dirt and bacteria from their skin are kept away from my cookies.
Especially when they take my money (with all the dust and dirt and bacteria from the thousand people that touched it before) *with the same hand wearing the glove*. Doh.
I always assumed it was so that you can use it yourself, so your hand doesn't get greasy....
But I guess that doesn't make sense, seeing as someone else has already used it...
Btw, love this site. :D
Well, if I had a food allergy to peanuts, and you just bought a bag of peanut butter cookies, I wouldn't want the sales clerk to use the same tissue paper for handling my purchase.
It most certainly is not because of germs. In fact, when I worked at Subway, the gloves we used weren't ones that could prevent the transfer of germs. That's why it was always policy to use the hand sanitizer before putting on the gloves. The gloves were to ease the customer's mind, and prevent our hands from getting messy -- not to help with germ transfer.
I think the Tissue Paper is nice because it keeps multiple ones separate. More important for doughnuts, IMHO.
A recent medical study found that using gloves or not using gloves didn't have a signifigant impact on bacterial levels in food. It was other sanitation practices that were important, like washing hands after using the restroom or handling raw meat.
I really agree with Thomas that money, especially paper money, is a huge source of bacteria. Think about where many people keep their wallet, in a pocket on their butt.
It reduces their trash hauling costs if they send out the used tissue paper with each customer, rather than filling their bin.
This is an old joke from a stand-up routine. George Carlin, I think. And most cookie stores don't follow this practice any more, largely due to the popularity of the joke.
They aren't so much for sanitation as they are for keeping your cookies apart. If you only have one kind od cookie, fine, but how about glazed? Half-moons? Frosted?
That's not even the most broken part. Ever seen a place that bakes cookies/pretzels in a mall? Ever seen the bakers wearing gloves? Seen them go back to handling the food? An oven is like an incubator for certain germs, unless it gets prohibitively hot for them to live. I suspect that if your food was germy, it was handled in pre-baked state by people not wearing gloves that most likely contaminated it.
Sorry, I just gotta say, unknown, posts like yours are annoying and contribute nothing to the discussion. You agree with whom? What's interesting?
I once went to a fish store in NYC where the same guy cutting and measuring the slices was taking money. He kept his gloves on the whole time, as if that would somehow protect the fish from coming in contact with the germs from the bills.
Personal story, i was working in the local mall, i had i sort of a runny nose, so i was using a few layers of tissue, a customer saw me using the tissues and said "excuse me, could you have someone else bag my things since your sick? my grandma is sick and i dont want to take more germs home". Wasn't really a problem except the fact that, we're in a mall, all the air is recirculated.. whatever i've got, its already "all" over your clothes along with whatever someone else out there has.
I have a question. Who posted on april 19 at 12:27 PM? There's no name there. I mean the post right above glatzer's one.
>An oven is like an incubator for certain germs, unless it gets
>prohibitively hot for them to live. I suspect that if your food was >germy, it was handled in pre-baked state by people not wearing >gloves that most likely contaminated it.
"prohibitively hot " for germs/viri/bacteria is right about 141 degrees fahrenheit. Doesn't take long at all to kill them at that temperature.
Most baking is done over 350 degrees fahrenheit, so, your cookies and almost all baked//roast/broiled goods are too.
The tissue is used so that you don't get your hands sticky, and as an EXTRA sanitary barrier against germs, the employees still have to wash their hands.
The tissue can be used for 4 things.
1. To keep different cookies apart
2. To stop crumbs getting all over you.
3. To wipe your nose after u eat your cookie.
4. To keep the cashiers gerns off the cookie.
I agree with "myheadhurts." Anyone who knows ANYTHING knows that baking something kills germs, etc. Why do you think raw meat is safe to eat after it's cooked?
I agree with "myheadhurts." Anyone who knows ANYTHING knows that baking something kills germs, etc. Why do you think raw meat is safe to eat after it's cooked?
Also, can you please cease the postings like "intersting..."? Add something meaningful.
Personally, I think that that's just over-safety and a waste of materials. Why can't they use a clean glove?
In "Why do Clocks Run Clockwise? And Other Imponderables", David Feldman says:
"We contacted all of the biggest doughnut-store companies. Those that responded sheepishly admitted that the tissue, usually Sav-R-Wrap tissue, is used by employees for sanitary reasons, but couldn't explain why the tissue, 'germs and all,' is stuffed in the bag, except that it is, as Carl E. Hass, president of Winchell's says, 'placed on top of the donuts so that the customer may use it to remove the product from the bag.' The director of product marketing at Dunkin' Donuts, Glenn Bacheller, agreed that perhaps the custom isn't the greatest idea, and said that the Dunkin' Donuts training department is looking into the possibility of not stuffing in the 'used' tissue."
Thank you lomedhi! for posting something meaningful (that means I shouldn't be posting this now...)
That's interesting, it seems that they'd change it.
John Jonson is right: "The gloves were to ease the customer's mind, and prevent our hands from getting messy -- not to help with germ transfer." Employees of any upstanding food service company are required to -and do- wash their hands after doing anything that has even the remotest possibility of food contamination. That's still not good enough for many customers. I suppose I understand, it's not like they see me scrubbing my hands with steaming hot water and soap for 1 full minute on average every 15 minutes.
And.. yes.. according to the health department in ohio, the "safe range" for hot food starts at 140 degrees, that's the point where foodborn bacteria no longer reproduces. Hotter than that, and it's killed. Most every piece of equipment in a food-service venue, from grills to friers to ovens, is at 350-400 degrees.
If you think about it, they have been using the little wax paper sheets for a long time to put doughnuts in your box. (Back in the 20's, 30's, 40's 50's...), before everyone started being "ultra paranoid" about germs, they used the little wax sheets to pick up your doughnuts to keep their hands from getting messy, and threw it in the bag, so you could pick it up without your hands getting messy also.
If it's a problem for you, and you are seriously bothered by it, why don't you solve the problem at the source, and tell the cookie clerk not to throw the tissue in the bag? Make sure you make a big deal out of it front of the other customers when you point this observation out so you can make the cookie clerk feel foolish. You'll also make yourself feel better.
You are eating COOKIES. Are ytou really that worried about your health? Well, I guess there are some healthy cookies, but by and large cookies aren't really good for you, are they?
I think that you people are getting much too paranoid about this subject. There is no need for every bit of food you come into contact with to be completely sterilised. The cookie-counter cookies are probably alot cleaner than some other foods you purchase, too.
I use the tissue for eating the cookie without getting my hands dirty. It never occured to me that there was any other use for it, and I hope they don't stop putting the tissue into the bag.
I use the tissue for eating the cookie without getting my hands dirty. It never occured to me that there was any other use for it, and I hope they don't stop putting the tissue into the bag.
The governemnt allows a certain level of gross stuff in your food. That includes things such as "Insect filth and/or mold" and "Mammalian excreta". Nummy.
Google "Food Defect Action Levels" (I can't seem to get the link past the "comment spam" filters.)
Big deal if the tissues are in the bag. You should be more concerned about eating in restaurants in general. I'd bet the majority have had employees who spit in the food.
Baking something may kill the stuff on the outside, but that doesn't necessarily mean the INTERNAL temperature of the product has reached the appropriate level. Stuff could still be living inside the product. Granted this is unlikely with things like cookies, but very common with things like meats.
sadsack, you were alive in the 20's to know that they used tissues on cookies 8 decades ago? wow, at your age i'm surprised you are mentally apt to use the computer.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: AOL Music's average user rating | Main | Next: Kmart selection (just for fun)
Wow. Really good question.
Posted by: Chris at April 19, 2005 12:45 AM