September 22, 2021 – Food safety is critical for anyone involved in the restaurant or foodservice industry. Ensuring that the food produced in your kitchen is safe for consumption is essential to developing and maintaining a successful business. But given the reality that germs can live for around three hours on human hands, keeping your workers and food supply safe can be quite a challenge. There are several things that hospitality concerns can do to improve their overall food safety, including providing plenty of sanitation wipes for employees. Read on for our favorite ways to improve your business’ food safety protocols.
1. Provide employees with the right types of protection
Workers need protective clothing such as hairnets and gloves to prevent food contamination. Employees should wear a hair net to prevent hairs from falling into food products, and gloves should be worn when handling both raw produce and cooked foods. Foodservice employees should also wash their hands before and after handling food or putting on gloves. Remember that gloves appropriate for food service purposes are different from regular disposable plastic gloves.
2. Sanitize your appliances
Sanitizing surfaces after every use is the best way to reduce the dangers of cross-contamination, so creating a plan to clean all food preparation surfaces after use is critical. Appliances used in food production need to be sanitized after every use. Items such as knives and cutting boards should be immediately cleaned after cutting meat to prevent the spread of pathogens such as e.coli.
3. Clean, clean, and clean some more
Keeping the foodservice and preparation areas clean helps prevent the development of conditions attractive to insects and rodents. Ensuring that all surfaces are regularly wiped down and floors swept is essential to limiting rodent and insect infestations that have the potential to shut down your business.
4. Pay attention to expiration dates
To ensure the highest possible food quality, it’s important to pay attention to expiration dates. Food past the expiration date should never be cooked or served to patrons. Set up a regular rotation and labeling system that makes it easy for employees to identify products that need to be thrown away and ensure that your managers and employees understand the critical importance of explicitly adhering to guidance regarding expiration dates.
5. Have a generous sick-leave policy
Having sick workers preparing food isn’t good for your employees or your customers. One sick employee can infect several co-workers and create short and long-term staffing issues. And a sick worker is less prepared to ensure that all food safety protocols are followed, increasing the likelihood of a customer becoming sick via a food-borne illness.
With these five tips, you will be able to ensure the safety of your patrons and employees. Sanitize everything, provide proper gear for your employees, and don’t serve expired products. Staying on top of the health and safety of your foodservice business is essential to its success.