The Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit have a new online service they hope will make picking where to eat easier.
As part of Food Premises Regulation the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit inspects local food premises, like restaurants, grocery stores, food trucks and hot dog carts, to ensure food being served to the public is stored and prepared sanitarily. These reports have always been available to the public by request but summaries of these reports are now available online. The health unit’s new INSIGHT portal gives the public access to health inspection information in the tri-county area.
To access the summaries visit www.healthunit.org and select the food safety page. Click the INSIGHT button and then select “Food Facility Inspections” from the menu on the left side of the page. This brings up a text field, simply write the name of an establishment and press enter. The list only includes restaurants that have been reviewed by public health inspectors and there is also an outline for how to interpret the summaries.
The health unit encourages viewing a number of summaries over a period of time because it shows an eatery’s pattern of cleanliness, not a single inspection. The INSIGHT portal has summaries for reports from 2016 and 2017. Reports made in 2015 or earlier can still be accessed through the previous process, which the health unit has outlined on their website’s food safety page.
The health unit adds that INSIGHT is intended to provide information and is not an endorsement of any business listed. For more information on INSIGHT, please email the health unit at [email protected] or call 1-800-660-5853.
