About Restaurant Food Safety

Fast facts

• 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.1
• Foodborne illnesses cost the U.S. about $17.6 billion per year.2
• Many of these illnesses occur as part of a foodborne illness outbreak; 841 foodborne illness outbreaks were reported to CDC in 2017.3
• More than half of all foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States are associated with restaurants, delis, banquet facilities, schools, and other institutions.3

What CDC is doing

Practice-based research

• The Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net) connects environmental health specialists, epidemiologists, and lab professionals from CDC, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Agriculture, and 8 state and local health departments.
• Since 2000, CDC has funded state and local health departments for more than 20 retail food safety studies, leading to 52 publications.

Prevention tools and guidance

• CDC provides the National Environmental Assessment Reporting System (NEARS) for health departments.
• Our free training helps food safety staff address environmental causes of foodborne illnesses and outbreaks.
• Plain language summaries guide outbreak prevention strategies.

What you can do

Restaurant managers are in a key position to influence the policies and practices in their restaurant that affect food safety.

• Explore findings on specific practices and foods linked to outbreaks.
• Learn about our work to improve investigations of foodborne outbreaks.