Bend’s food truck scene has inspectors on the run
If it feels like there’s always a new food cart popping up, it’s not your imagination.
Eric Mone is the health supervisor for Deschutes County. He said Tuesday the department has issued 173 mobile food unit licenses already in 2018.
Mone said the number of carts has spiked in the last few years, and it’s keeping the county’s six health inspectors very busy.
“We’re at a breakneck pace. We’re feeling the pressure, but we’re getting the inspections done,” Mone said Tuesday.
It doesn’t look like Mone’s team will be getting any breaks soon. This year, the department has done 28 plan reviews for potential new trucks. In all of last year, there were 30 total. Mone said there’s no capping of the number allowed.
“I mean. the question is, how much sustainability is there in Central Oregon? How many mobile food units can make it work in Deschutes County?” he said. “I don’t know what the answer to that is. I guess we’ll see.”
According to Mone, “Clackamas County, as of the 2010 Census, the population was 375,992. Clackamas only has 117 licensed mobile food units (MFU) in 2018. By comparison, Deschutes County, population 181,307 (in 2016) has issued 173 MFU licensed for 2018. Multnomah County, with a population of 807,555 (2017), has 856.”
Food trucks are inspected twice a year.
“On a routine inspection, we are really trying to identify and reduce risk of food-borne illness by checking hand-washing frequency of staff, temperatures of hot and cold foods, cross-contamination between raw meats, eggs, seafood and ready-to-eat foods, along with cleanliness and sanitation practices,” Mone said.
“We check out any menu changes, when the food was made, if they are monitoring temperatures of cooling rates of hot foods and reheating temperatures of foods meant for hot-holding,” he explained.
Mone said the food code for trucks only requires them to hold a minimum of 35 gallons of clean water and 40 gallons of wastewater. Because of this, he said, pods are nice from a health perspective, because they generally hook up like trailers.
“The nice thing about the pods is the infrastructure of having the water, sewer power connections — a continuous water supply so you can wash your hands, wash the dishes like they’re supposed to be,” he said.
Right now, mobile food units are rated on a pass-or fail-type grading system. But Mone said that could change with the new year. He said state officials are pushing to have them also assigned a number grade, the same way restaurants are graded.
Those with a public health concern about a restaurant or food truck can follow the link below:
https://www.deschutes.org/health/page/report-public-health-concern
