Why ServSafe is under attack in the court of public opinion

The New York Times ran an article last week that stunned the restaurant business. Tagged as a breaking news story, the piece blasted the industry’s leading political watchdog for selling a $15 food safety training program and channeling the money into the pool from which it draws its lobbying funds. Never mind that the practice has been in place for 16 years. 

The scandal, according to the story, was the National Restaurant Association’s use of proceeds from the ServSafe program to push back on proposals to raise a jurisdiction’s minimum wage. Workers’ own funds were being used to lobby against their economic interests, the piece asserted. 

The latest installment of the Working Lunch podcast takes a hard look at the story and why it’s raising eyebrows. Co-hosts Joe Kefauver and Franklin Coley, principals of the government-affairs specialist Align Public Strategies, are joined during the program by Peter Romeo, Restaurant Business’ political reporter, to parse the article and what it could mean for the industry.

Listen to how and why ServSafe and the National Restaurant Association are being cast in a negative light.

Download Working Lunch from wherever you get your podcasts.

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