News

New York City passes out first food truck inspection grades

January 21, 2019

The New York City health department passed out its first 22 grades for food truck and food cart inspections, most of which were As, according to a New York Times report. The department announced in November that  it would give letter grades to the city's 5,000 carts and trucks, a practice it had been following for the city's 24,000 brick-and-mortar restaurants since 2010. 

Corinne Schiff, the city's deputy commissioner of environmental health, said all mobile food vendors would be graded in the next two years, and four inspectors have been added to the staff, which now exceeds 100 inspectors. All grades and violations will be posted online, according to Schiff. 

On Friday, several mobile food vendors said they were satisfied with the grading system. 

The city is also installing a location sharing device on each vehicle or cart to assist the inspection process. The inspectors will install the device as the vendor renews their 1- or 2-year permit. To protect the vendors' privacy, the department will delete the data from its internal database after 24 hours.