Welcome to the Lake County General Health District’s redesigned Food Safety Ninja page! We have updated the look and content to better serve the general public and our local food establishments. The new site will provide a central location for food safety information and access to current topics or trends. Food safety videos and quizzes are available to increase your food safety knowledge along with food safety educational content to share information for households and restaurants. The content and videos can be used by anyone but some information pertains to the Ohio Food Code and categories such as contacts or class information specifically pertain to Lake County. We hope that you enjoy our new look and benefit from the resources we have available.
HISTORY
In 2015, the Lake County General Health District (LCGHD) obtained a five-year FDA grant to create... uniformity in the food safety program in Lake County. Included within the grant was the requirement to create an innovative food safety intervention directed at food establishments. LCGHD food staff reached out to a local professor in search of a community collaboration to create this educational intervention. Steven Gutierrez, of the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA), created an animation course designed around this grant. His students along with LCGHD food staff members created The Food Safety Ninja. The CIA students designed the first 6 animated food safety videos. Steven Gutierrez created a webpage to host these animated videos. This website served as an educational intervention that licensed food establishments were sent to for remedial education when certain food safety violations were found during a routine inspection. LCGHD has removed the mandatory remedial education portion of the website but the education videos and quizzes remain for use by anyone desiring food safety training. At the completion of the FDA grant, LCGHD continued to keep the website active with further collaboration with Steven Gutierrez and the creation of two additional videos. In 2022, we decided that the webpage needed to be reformatted into a site that is usable by not only the regulated food community but also the general public. By adding additional videos, new content, and interactive sections, we hope that the page will be found useful by many people from around the world.