This is an interesting idea. As with everything there are pros and cons.Brian Lutz wrote: ↑January 16th, 2021, 7:40 pm they had a container of clean spatulas out at the front of the pizza line, with the intent that each person would take one, use it for their trip through the line, and then place it in a container at the end for washing.. Similarly on the salad bar there was a container of tongs for one-time use. Some items (such as the pasta) still had serving spoons in them.
For me personally I would like having my own clean spatula or tong to touch and then not worry about who else has touched them.
I am not sure what I think of it though if someone either gets their hands full and coordination becomes a bit confused or is sloppy and somehow the handle of that spatula/tong gets in contact with the food sitting on the tray it could still contaminate the whole thing. Or as they are walking along if that spatula or tong somehow touches the serving station or edge of it near the waist as you walk along... or worse yet if they sneeze and raise the thing up toward their nose (natural motion to move hand toward nose when sneezing)...
With the pizza it seems like they could pre-plate the slices (some buffets in the past did this with things like cake or pie slices- pre plate and you grab the plate from the self serve area) but maybe they don't have space for that then they'd have a ton of plates to deal with.
I have yet to see any grocers re-open things like olive bars, salad bars, etc. Some self serve bakeries are open again with loose products out on trays with tissue paper/bags.