A little something with your groceries?

I am currently watching a rather alarmist Marketplace on CBC. Its subject: food safety in supermarkets. The overwhelming impression you get from this program is that shopping at your local supermarket will make you ill and maybe kill you. There is a litany of mouse droppings, unwashed hands, improper handling and storage of food. Store after store, province after province, coast to coast, they document a truly astounding number of health violations.

I'm eighteen minutes in, and they haven't named one supermarket yet. I've watched very carefully, but they've screened their show even more carefully. I can't identify a single chain, either from decor cues or glimpses of store-brand products. Rather gutless, don't you think? To make all these accusations without naming names? It's like asserting that one-third of all NHL players dope up.

The show did clue me in to Toronto's rating system, which I had thought only applied to restaurants. It is mandatory in Toronto (and Peel Region) to prominently display a colour-coded card at the front door. Green means the place has passed; yellow means there are problems currently being fixed, and red means the store has been closed due to health violations.

Armed with this information, I searched the database for all Price Choppers in the area. Green across the board.
To be honest, this surprised me a little. I've heard some horror stories, you see. I reviewed the history of each individual Price Chopper and did find four yellow cards issued in the past two years. When an establishment is issued a yellow card, they get one week to bring themselves up to code. These PC stores had done so: there were no repeats.

I wondered if perhaps our competitors had fared any worse. I sure hoped so. But no: all Food Basics and No Frills show green, and only a few stores have ever seen a yellow card.

Many customers have remarked on the cleanliness of our store. And well they should: we take great pride in it. Are we perfect? Of course not. Things come in with the products. I've had a mouse run out from the middle of a pallet of eggs. Spiders have crawled out from banana boxes...once, something that looked awfully like a black widow (but probably wasn't). Birds occasionally come in to shop...once they get in, it's beastly hard to get them out.

I'd actually like to see Toronto's rating system expanded to cover the country. I feel pretty confident in saying we'd pass easily.