The hospitality industry has seen a rise in claims over the last two decades. (Credit: Giovanni Cancemi/Adobe Stock)
Dining out is supposed to be a reward, not a punishment. Yet in the United States, where the food supply is among the safest in the world, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there are about 48 million cases of foodborne illness annually — the equivalent of sickening one in six Americans each year. And each year, food poisoning results in an estimated 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.
Restaurant or street vendor dining causes only a percentage of those numbers. But in 2020, when eating out dramatically declined during the COVID pandemic, the CDC reported that foodborne illnesses, "fell by 26%, the largest single-year change during 25 years of FoodNet surveillance."
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