As product arrives at the units, staff report any problems.

Behm says the company doesn't market its food-safety efforts, believing instead that when the customer witnesses a clean environment and safe practices, it means more. As a customer, Panda's expectations from its suppliers are higher, but they mirror that “actions speak louder than words” attitude.

Panda Restaurant Group counts on suppliers to follow the industry's standard food practices and communicate problems through the supply chain.

Currently the company is increasing the frequency of supplier audits so there's a minimum of one a year. The company classifies food items in terms of risk, which depends on a product's inherent qualities and how much of it the company uses. For high-risk products, Panda audits manufacturing facilities quarterly, says Behm, who joined the company in spring 2005 and leads all development in operations, menu and engineering. Prior to that, he ran a consulting company focused on strategy and operations; during that time he began working with Panda.

Founded in 1973 and based in Rosemead, Calif., Panda operates more than 1,000 Panda Express units, a quick-service Chinese concept; six casual-dining Panda Inns, which serve Mandarin and Szechuan cuisine; and 27 Hibachi-Sans, a QSR offering Japanese grill and sushi dishes. Company sales reached $1 billion in 2007.

Members of Panda's quality-assurance team usually conduct the audits themselves, hiring a third-party auditor when they have to. Behm can't cite a ratio of company audits to third-party audits. “We just figure out how to get the job done,” he says.

Panda builds customer trust by ensuring its food is safe and tasty.

That said, Behm believes the restaurant chain has a great responsibility as well. “We know that our suppliers are doing their job, and there will be mistakes,” he says. “It's our job to make sure that we catch everything, because we're the ones that have the trust with the customer. We have to make sure that we follow all the procedures and try to keep them safe.”

In the stores, procedures require a report detailing any product that comes in below standards. That triggers a series of events to find the root cause. “We're sitting here at the corporate level looking for patterns,” Behm says. “If an issue pops up in 25 different stores around the country, we know we've got a supplier problem real fast. If you get onesie-twosies, that can be anything.”

To test all of the steps within the supply chain, Panda auditors will occasionally hide a temperature-tracking device in a carton of product at the manufacturer. A chip on the device records temperatures on a regular basis so Panda's QA team can look over the entire chain and see if temperatures stayed in the range they're supposed to. If they didn't, they know what to work on.

Despite the standards, audits and reporting, Behm says Panda relies mostly on good communication from the manufacturer, distributor and restaurants. “It's really just everybody keeping track and communicating it up and down,” he concludes.