by David Ingram, Demand Media restaurant image by Jerome Dancette from Fotolia.com
Employee Relations
Employee relations is an area of ethics that food establishments too often neglect. With a number of exceptions, food restaurants generally pay minimum wage or only slightly higher for high-stress jobs. Scheduling issues are notorious in restaurant settings as well, with employees working double shifts or working early-morning shifts immediately after late-night shifts. Food establishments should commit to breaking the trend of overworking and underpaying employees.
Addressing this issue in a code of ethics can dramatically impact your reputation among potential employees.

Food Safety
Although most people do not realize it, patrons of food establishments place their lives in the establishments' hands. Improper storing and labeling of food items or selling slightly-expired food can be tempting from a financial perspective but can lead to serious injury or worse due to food poisoning, cross-contamination or allergic reactions. Food establishments should include firm commitments to food safety in their codes of ethics, always placing food safety above financial concerns. This includes going beyond the letter of the law to enforce the highest product quality standards.
Supplier Standards
Food establishments should be familiar with their suppliers. Again, financial considerations can tempt food establishment owners to purchase the most inexpensive ingredients with no questions asked. To show a commitment to ethics, food establishments should perform due diligence before signing a contract with a new supplier. Codes of ethics should require food establishments to know where suppliers source their livestock, how livestock is raised and treated, which hormones or artificial additives are added to feed stocks and other ethical considerations related to the humane treatment of animals and equitable employment practices.
Public Health Issues
Twenty-first century food establishments are beginning to see that the law allows for serious breaches of ethics in the food industry; thus, many are beginning to take matters into their own hands to combat the United States' growing health epidemic. A code of ethics should include a commitment to sell only healthy products and never to use harmful ingredients. Twentieth-century fast-food establishments, for example, paid little or no attention to fat content and harmful additives, addicting a generation of consumers at the expense of their health — and sometimes their lives. Twenty-first century fast-casual chains, on the other hand, serve the same types of food but use fresh, healthy ingredients to minimize fat and additive content.