Food safety team defends its work: It’s a ‘high pressure, thankless’ job

EVERETT — As food truck owners complain of delays getting county permits, Snohomish County staff cite burnout and turnover as the biggest contributors to the crisis.

The health department’s goal is to process food permits within four to six weeks. This year, wait times hit up to 20 weeks. As of last month, more than 80 business owners were waiting for a food permit.

Permit wait times have dropped to about 12 weeks. That’s still “too long for businesses to wait to generate revenue,” Health Director Dennis Worsham told the county Board of Health last Tuesday.

Multiple food truck owners have raised concerns about the monthslong wait times and other permitting challenges. Melinda Grenier of Hay Girl Coffee, based in Arlington, applied for her permit in April, and she’s still waiting. She and other mobile food vendors have spent thousands of dollars in temporary permits trying to get their business off the ground.

But the county’s food safety team is doing the best they can under the circumstances, Worsham and two food safety program managers told the Board of Health.

“Selfishly, I want to say, ‘There’s another side to the story,’” said Ragina Gray, the county’s environmental health director. “I get it, they’re upset because they want to open. But it’s not that we’re just sitting here not doing our jobs.”

The food safety program, with a staff of 26, has seen “long systemic challenges,” Worsham said. But when one supervisor and one of the county’s two plan reviewers quit, it sent the team into crisis mode.

“I think it’s important to be honest and transparent,” Worsham said. “We’re not properly staffed to do the work we need to do.”

Last year, the county saw 522 food permit applications, or about 44 per month. Plan reviewers would need to complete one per day to maintain a quick turnaround time, said Tony Colinas, the county’s environmental health assistant director. That doesn’t include the 30 consultations and 50 ownership change inspections that year.

From January to April of this year, the program saw about 180 applications, or 47 per month.

“We’re only one person away from disaster all of the time,” Gray said.

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The health department typically has two full-time plan reviewers. Gray said the department “managed” with one reviewer at the height of the pandemic. But it was “traumatic” for that employee, she added.

People often leave the food safety team because it is “highly political, high pressure and thankless,” Gray said.

“The plan reviewer is the only thing standing in the way of that business owner and their livelihood,” she said. “Everyone always wants you to go faster. They call at all hours mobbed and angry … Even though we completely understand the frustration and don’t blame people for complaining, all of that can be a lot of pressure for staff, even seasoned staff who are very familiar with the code and the process. No one wants a job where they get yelled at all day. Staff can run screaming from plan review and it is hard for us to recruit people to do it.”

When vendor in Snohomish County seeks a food permit online, they can use a 15-page guide explaining the review process and a checklist. Then they must submit a more than 20-page permit application with a step-by-step plan for their business. This includes floor layout, supplies, equipment, kitchen access and daily operating procedures.

During the initial application screening, permit techs — the team’s customer service workers — will reach out to applicants if anything is missing. Then the application is assigned to a plan reviewer, who makes sure everything meets the state’s safety code. This is where the current bottleneck is, Colinas said.

Not just anyone can review applications. Plan reviewers “have to be experts” on the state’s extensive safety code, Colinas said. And they’re usually working with first-time applicants, making the process more complicated.

It’s common for reviewers to deny applications the first time, Gray said, or even the second or third time. When vendors appeal a disapproval, their applications keep circling in the queue until they’re approved.

Megan Dunn, a County Council member who sits on the Board of Health, asked Gray if the county could provide software or online tools to help applicants.

Gray said the health department will look into it, and it “seems like a good idea.” The department does offer a permit consultation for a “small fee” of $215, Gray said.

If a mobile food vendor wants to work an event while waiting, temporary permits range from $90 to $235 per day. The fee helps cover the temporary plan review and overtime pay for employees inspecting mobile units during events that often run on weekends, Gray said.

Grenier, of Hay Girl Coffee, said she’s worked many events with temporary permits where no one showed up for inspection. She’s criticized the health department for setting up small food businesses to fork over hundreds in fees while they wait for their annual permit.

“I don’t understand how people can just sit here and take it,” she said. “They just hand over their money.”

Another problem is kitchen access. Before applying for a permit, mobile food vendors must have a contract with a commissary kitchen, also called a commercial kitchen, for wastewater dumping.

The Kitchen Door, an online commercial kitchen locator, lists three available spaces in Snohomish County. One, in Everett, charges $1,000 for 36 hours of kitchen time per month. The others, in Woodinville and Marysville, do not list a price. Meanwhile, King County has an online dashboard of at least 24 kitchens.

When Grenier reached out to health department workers for help finding a kitchen, they said she was on her own. At last week’s meeting, Gray said Snohomish County has about 3,500 restaurants with kitchens that could be shared with mobile food vendors. But that’s up for the restaurant owners to decide, she said.

Kim Reynolds and Brandon Wilson, who own Wander Wholesale in Marysville, said costs and long wait times may prevent some food business owners from sharing their kitchens. Lack of refrigeration and work space are other obstacles, Wilson added.

Reynolds and Wilson rented out a large kitchen for $2,000 per month, hoping small businesses like Hay Girl Coffee could use the space. They submitted their kitchen plan and paid the $800 application fee in January. They didn’t get their commissary license, that comes with an additional $400 price tag, until last week.

“Six months is a long time to pay for a space you can’t use,” Reynolds said. “It’s just insane to think that any small business could survive that. If we didn’t have another working kitchen a couple doors down, we couldn’t have survived.”

Right now, Colinas said, the food safety program is still in crisis management mode. The department is reassigning staff members to help get through reviews, and may hire more permit techs in the future.

“The good news is,” Colinas said, “we are seeing a decline in wait times.”

Sydney Jackson: 425-339-3430; sydney.jackson@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @_sydneyajackson.