Some years ago, the television show “Mythbusters” tested the “5-Second Rule”—a belief that food dropped on the floor can be safely picked up and eaten as long as it happens within five seconds. The team tested samples of wet pastrami and dry crackers by placing them on bacteria-infested floor tiles for two and six seconds, then did cultures to see how much bacteria formed compared to a control. In the end, time didn’t really make much of a difference with regard to how much bacteria the food picked up. All that mattered was that the food dropped to touch the bacteria on the floor. That’s why any product that falls to the floor in a food plant is immediately discarded. But a potential problem in food manufacturing is if the bacteria on the floor rises to meet the product. That’s why the choice of floor and drain are so essential to reducing the risk of product contamination.
The CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases. A CDC report from 2018 found that incidents of foodborne illness have been on the rise in the U.S. How does that compare to other countries? Well, the UK’s Food Safety Agency (FSA) says that it’s all but impossible to do an accurate comparison from one country to the next.