National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation

The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF) is a not-for-profit organization controlled by the National Restaurant Association. The NRAEF is a self-proclaimed educator to the restaurant and foodservice industry, producing educational materials, funding scholastic activities and running certification programs in a growing range of food service related subjects.

History
The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation was established in 1987 through an acquisition of Chicago-based National Institute for the Foodservice Industry by the Washington, D.C.-based National Restaurant Association. It was led by Daniel Gescheidle from its inception in 1987 through 1998. In that period it came to be known in some circles as the "the industry's classroom."

Activity
Among several educational efforts the NRAEF created the ServSafe certifications program, with the goal of the program becoming 'the industry standard in food safety training'. In addition, the NRAEF established in 1993 the International Food Safety Council, in order to 'heighten the awareness of the importance of food safety education worldwide.'

The NRAEF claims that its ServSafe Food Safety certification program is 'the most widely accepted food safety program among local, state and federal health departments' and that the ServSafe certification 'has always set the standard in food safety training and certification'

Conflict of Interest
The NRAEF uses a not-for-profit organizational model. This model helps promote the appearance of NRAEF's neutrality while furthering the credibility of its certification training programs and textbooks, which in turn the NRAEF sells to its students.

Although the NRAEF positions itself as a credible entity that, in its own words, 'sets the standard in food safety testing', the NRAEF certification and educational programs are constructed with minimal public discourse and without input from communities and groups involved in natural and humane farming initiatives. Since the NRAEF is controlled by the National Restaurant Association, which in turn is beholden to its member restaurants, the NRAEF certification programs are in effect written indirectly by large foodservice industry interests for themselves.

The NRAEF's educational activities, while focused on the subject of 'food safety', do not venture into questioning the sustainability and ethical underpinnings of the factory farm food model propagated by an industry bent on cutting the bottom line, nor do they discuss the risks posed by new and relatively untested technologies and chemicals introduced into the human food chain.

It would in fact be very difficult for the NRAEF to support non-genetically modified foods, non-chemically treated vegetables and non-factory farm raised meats, when many of the current or past sponsors of NRAEF's International Food Safety Council such as Monsanto, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, American Egg Board, Tyson Foods and others directly profit from or represent the manufacturers of such products.

In effect, a large portion of U.S. foodservice industry managers are tested and certified without being offered a proper discussion regarding safety and ethical considerations of their establishments' sourcing of food from factory farm model producers as opposed to buying local, buying non-GMO, non-chemically treated vegetables and humanely raised meat products, while at the same time remaining under the impression that they have received a 'fair and balanced' education on the subject.

International Food Safety Council
The International Food Safety Council describes its mission as 'taking the lead in educating the foodservice industry about the importance of food safety.'

Current and past sponsors include:
 * Activ USA
 * Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute
 * American Egg Board
 * Atkins Temptec
 * Bunzl Distribution
 * Campbell Soup Company
 * Cargill Foods
 * Cattlemen's Beef Board
 * Coca-Cola
 * Colgate-Palmolive Company
 * Cooper Instrument Corporation
 * Cooper-Atkins Corporation
 * Daydots International
 * ECOLAB, Inc.
 * Farquharson Enterprises, Ltd.
 * FoodHandler, Inc.
 * GOJO Industries, Inc.
 * Handgards Inc.
 * Heinz U.S.A.
 * Hobart Corporation
 * International Foodservice Distributors Association
 * International Foodservice Manufacturers Association
 * International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association
 * Johnson Wax Professional
 * Jones Dairy Farm
 * KatchAll Industries International
 * Kimberly-Clark
 * Lipton Foodservice
 * Monsanto Company
 * Nabisco, Inc.
 * National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA)
 * National Pork Producers Council
 * North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers (NAFEM)
 * Orkin Commercial
 * Procter & Gamble Company
 * Produce Marketing Association
 * Reckitt Benckiser
 * SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals
 * SYSCO Corporation
 * Tyson Foods
 * UBF Foodsolutions
 * U.S. Foodservice

Contact Details
175 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 1500 Chicago, IL 60604-2814 Phone: 1.800.765.2122 Email: info AT restaurant DOT Web: http://www.nraef.org/