Logan County Department of Public Health

The goal of the Food Protection Program is to prevent the occurrence of food borne illness in the residents and visitors of Logan County.  This is accomplished mainly through education of food operators, surveillance of food illnesses, and enforcement of sanitation codes.  Food establishments selling, preparing, and/or serving foods to the public are inspected in order to assure compliance with the Illinois Food Service Sanitation Code, Illinois Retail Food Code, local sanitation ordinances, and other applicable regulations.  In Logan County, food establishments are inspected at least 1-3 times per year depending on food handling practices and compliance records. 

Routine inspections are unannounced and are scored on a 100-point minus debit point system.  There are 45 items or categories under which violations may be written.  Within these 45 items, 13 are considered critical items.  Critical items are those violations that are more likely to contribute to food contamination, illness, or other environmental health hazard.  Items such as improper food temperatures, contaminated foods, and poor personal hygiene are considered critical items.  The remaining 32 items are considered non-critical items.  Non-critical items are those violations that are relatively unlikely to directly contribute to food borne illness but do affect the overall sanitation level of the facility.  Items such as unclean floors and inadequate lighting are considered non-critical items.

Routine inspections provide information regarding the food establishment at the time of the inspection. Trends in the inspection history provide a more complete picture of the sanitation level that can be expected in specific food establishments.  Therefore, as results are posted, the two most recent routine inspections will be provided in order to assess any improvement in sanitation level that may have been noted.

The following numbers are provided from 2006 Logan County inspections for better perspective of the food inspection scoring system:

Food inspections performed by the Logan County Department of Public Health are public information.  Complete inspection reports are available through the Freedom of information Act (FOIA) and may be requested by submitting a FOIA Request Form to the Logan County Department of Public Health.