On July 12, the Berkeley, California audit shop produced a report about the city’s food inspections that could be called sickening.

Among its major findings was that 45% of the city’s food facilities – including restaurants, food markets, food trucks, boarding houses, bakeries and so on – had not been inspected by the city’s Environmental Health Division even once in 2023. This statistic is particularly startling when compared to those provided by Alameda County, which handles food inspections for the communities around Berkeley. The County indicated that only 3% of facilities hadn’t been inspected at least once in 2023. 

“This is a problem,” auditor Jenny Wong told us, because “it increases the risk of food born illness when facilities aren’t inspected.”

As with so many government audit findings, one reason for the shortcoming is understaffing. “There have been two key positions that have been left vacant since 2019,” said Wong. One is a supervisor role, and the other is a food inspector. In fact, for the supervisor, there hasn’t been an effort to recruit for over four years.”

The Environmental Health Division indicated to the auditor’s office that this was all a matter of priorities and pointed out that “there had been no confirmed foodborne illness outbreaks in Berkeley in recent years.” It stated that “Berkeley’s compensation for inspectors may make it more difficult to hire,” according to the audit. Additionally, it noted that a compensation analysis had not occurred for at least five years.

Of course, there’s only awareness of a foodborne illness outbreak when it’s reported by individuals, and many people don’t even consider calling the department of health to report an adverse reaction after a meal. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that there are 48 million cases of food borne illness in the United States each year. And it strikes us as unlikely that in a city of 120,000 there hasn’t been a single case of food-born illness due to tainted food. 

What’s more, even if Berkeley has been fortunate enough to have had a long streak of great luck in this regard, there’s good reason to believe that “there’s still the risk,” that one will occur in coming months. That’s why cities require inspections in the first place.

In its response to the audit, the department indicates that it is taking steps to alleviate the workforce shortages indicating that “barring any city-wide hiring freezes, recruitment for the EH Supervisor is expected to be initiated no later than October 2024 and bid solicitation for a staffing analysis as well as initiation of work towards a trainee program can occur by July 2025.”

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