New Meadowlands Stadium chef intends to work clean

What with all the attention this week focused on the cleanliness of stadium food operations - or lack thereof - I took the opportunity today to ask Bill Lohr, GM of Delaware North Sportservice, and Eric Borgia, executive chef at New Meadowlands Stadium, about keeping things clean at the Giants' and Jets' new home.

Said Lohr: "There's no reason to fear our food or stadium food in general . . . We need to unify as an industry and say, 'We're doing the right things to make sure things are safe.'

"To me it's all about training and supervision and breaking a big building into pieces and holding the supervisors accountable and having a good working relationship with the state board of health and doing all the right things - making sure the hot food's hot and the cold food's cold - and staying out of that danger zone that's in the middle.

"We spend a great deal of time training people and making people aware of that."

Said Borgia: "In a lot of the older, dirtier stadiums, it happens. We definitely don't want to be put in the spotlight for any of those things. We do the best we can.

"Don't get me wrong. We have food going in a lot of different directions. But as long as we start right, we just have to follow up and supervise and train on proper holding temperatures. It's crazy.

"But we're blessed with having a brand-new facility, a clean facility. When something is this big and beautiful it's easier to keep it clean than to put lipstick on a [older building]. But we have our hands full, to say the least."