Edmonton food truck health inspection reports not online
With the weather finally warming, food trucks will soon be out in force on Edmonton's streets.
But while the city's lunch crowd can get everything from burgers to bahn mi in a few minutes, there is one thing they have to wait much longer for — health inspection reports on the trucks themselves.
In Alberta, inspection reports for restaurants can be found online on Alberta Health Service's website. For the past year, the website has also hosted the inspection reports for food trucks operating in Calgary.
But for customers in Edmonton, the only option is to send an email requesting the reports from a specific food truck.
It is an oversight that bothers both customers and the food truck owners themselves.
Magy Lofyli was one of the many diners ordering from the trucks on Churchill Square Wednesday afternoon. She said she doesn't worry about the quality of the food truck kitchens, but would still like to know what inspectors are finding.
"I don't know what they do in there. I trust them, but I'd like to know," she said.
"That would be really cool because I could know where the food is coming from, and how it's taken care of, and sanitization and stuff."
'No reason' reports shouldn't be online
Mike Brennan would like to see the inspection records online as well. As the co-owner of the Sailin' On food truck, Brennan said his business has a good relationship with the province's health inspectors. He "doesn't see any reason" to not put the inspection reports online.
"It's important for the consumers to be informed and be aware,"
"We're a food vendor, and we're making and preparing food that's coming out of the truck, the people deserve to know what our reputation is."
Brennan said he'd like to be able to show off what he calls a clean inspection record, and believes other truck owners feel the same way.
"We also gets jokes about our long hair and beards. We have nothing to hide and we'd be happy to have our track record up on the internet," he said.
Alberta Health Services told CBC News that technical reasons prevent it from putting up the inspection reports. It cites a lack of IT infrastructure and said the inspection reports should be on the website sometime next year.
Until then, customers will have to rely on email to take a look at the records.
