Champps Americana diners eating up e-burgers
Medium rare.
That would be fine, sir.
Thank you.
That’s an exchange that’s taking place regularly these days at the two Milwaukee-area Champps Americana restaurants – an exchange that would have had the waiter responding, "I’m sorry, we can’t make it that way" a month ago.
The difference? The restaurants are now serving beef that has been treated with an electron beam to eliminate pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella.
Elimination of the pathogens is allowing the restaurants to serve burgers cooked at lower temperatures – without the fear of giving their diners a food-borne illness such low-temperature cooking might otherwise allow.
And from a business perspective, that also means elimination of some of the costly risks associated with food-borne illnesses, notes Bill Etter, operating partner of Champps Americana restaurants at 1240 S. Moorland Road in Brookfield and at 5030 S. 74th St. in Greenfield.
It all started six to eight months ago, when the restaurants made a switch to unfrozen Angus beef for their hamburgers. But, Etter thought: What would be the gain of having such a superior type of beef if you had to cook it to medium-well or well-done temperatures?
"Why upgrade if you can’t present better quality," he said.
The answer was in SureBeam, a California-based provider of electron-beam food safety systems and irradiation services for the food industry. "SureBeam-treated fresh ground beef is one way we can give our customers peace of mind, as part of our continuing commitment to food safety," Etter said.
The response from diners has been "surprising," Etter said, noting that 30% to 40% of hamburger orders have been coming to the grill requesting lower temperature ranges. And his cooks can now safely honor those requests.
Diners have been so receptive to the process that Etter has received several e-mails expressing gratitude, including one message from a group of Minnesota doctors who dined at one of his restaurants and who used the e-mail message to praise him for the service.
Etter is pleased that his customers have welcomed the beamed beef. But he also notes that the electron beaming gives him a higher level of confidence that he can avert a crisis brought on by food-borne illness.
He’s quick to recall the case of the Milwaukee and Wauwatosa Sizzler restaurants that were closed after more than 60 patrons became ill and a child died due to food-borne E. coli in July 2000.
He also recalls the cases of E. coli illnesses at Waukesha’s Bethesda Elementary School in October 2000, and last year’s illnesses among visitors to the Ozaukee County Fair.
Each year, food-borne pathogens are the cause of more than 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
With those facts in mind, Etter said, the engagement of the SureBeam process prompted the Champps American restaurants to reevaluate all of their food-handling procedures.
"As a food provider, it’s something you always worry about," he said.
In the short term, Etter doesn’t expect a break in liability insurance because of his actions, and he hasn’t heard any discussion of such breaks in the industry. But as concerns about food safety mount, Etter believes what he is doing will be commonplace in two to five years.
In 2000, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved food irradiation of meat products, a process similar to pasteurization of milk.
Recent legislation will formalize use of the term "electronic pasteurization," a less intimidating term than irradiation, Etter notes.
Dairy Queen restaurants in Minnesota have been test-marketing irradiated beef burgers this year, with the frozen beef supplied by Kenosha-based Birchwood Foods, owned by Kenosha Beef.
The SureBeam process adds about 10 cents per pound to the cost of the beef – a cost which the Champps Americana restaurants are absorbing, Etter said.
Sept. 13, 2002 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
