Keeping foods out of the temperature danger zone – between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit – can be more difficult in the summer heat, particularly if you’re preparing and serving food outdoors. Your temperature logs can help keep your food safety on track, but the information they contain can also reveal problems. In an interview with Mashed, Chris Boyles of Steritech said when temperature logs show several blank spaces or list the same temperature for every item, they can indicate to a health inspector that the restaurant isn’t tracking food temperatures correctly. Using digital tools to automate these tasks can help you identify these problems promptly and avoid raising red flags with inspectors. You’re hardly alone if you’re short on staff right now – a majority of restaurants are. But you don’t want to plant the seed with health inspectors that you are taking shortcuts with safety as a result. Does your restaurant show signs that it’s operating with a skeleton crew? That could include long waiting times before being greeted or served, as well as an abundance of tables waiting to be cleaned. If so, it may be time to review any time-wasting tasks throughout your operation. What items can be delegated to others or automated with the help of technology? What tasks are non-urgent and can be set aside so you can protect safety? Taking care of those items may help you ensure a guest returns – and assure an inspector that you’re not slipping up on safety. If you’re concerned that a slimmed-down menu may not provide enough options to hungry guests, fear not: Nowadays, a packed menu can send unappealing messages that you want to avoid communicating. Perhaps it says you’re trying to accomplish too much with a small staff and kitchen – or that the complexity of your dishes requires you over-rely on frozen ingredients or items made out of house. Maybe your large menu makes guests doubt you’d be able to ensure the freshness of all ingredients. More isn’t necessarily better. Having a menu that is in line with the scale of your kitchen and your staff makes it easier for you to attest to the freshness and quality of each item on your menu. It’s barbecue season. Is your staff ready to protect the raw meat and poultry they handle? Bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli occur naturally in animals’ digestive systems, so the safety precautions you take in handling animal proteins play a meaningful role in ensuring these pathogens aren’t passed on to guests. Make sure any frozen meat and poultry you receive arrives frozen and that refrigerated meat is no warmer than 41°F. Keep raw meat separate from other foods in your cooler and store it in accordance with how long it must be cooked – proteins requiring the most cooking, such as poultry, should be stored at the bottom. After handling raw meat, wash hands thoroughly with soap and running water, put on new gloves, and clean and sanitize your preparation area and tools. Cook proteins to the FDA’s recommended temperatures – and use calibrated thermometers to make sure your readings are accurate. Hand hygiene plays a significant role in food safety – and the summer months can make it more important and more difficult to do frequently. Your staff may be serving guests in outdoor dining areas or pop-up stalls that take them farther away from handwashing sinks. They may be handling more surfaces when passing from outdoor to indoor air-conditioned spaces. Hot temperatures can cause busy staff to perspire. If the warmer weather brings a change in routine for your staff, consider how to build in handwashing breaks at regular intervals – and remind staff to wash hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and running water. Warm-weather breaks by the sea make seafood even more craveable. But because of spoilage risks and the danger it can pose to allergic guests, ensure your staff understands the best methods for handling and storing seafood safely in its different forms. When it comes to refrigeration, store seafood below prepared foods and produce but above beef, pork and poultry. Store finfish like salmon, tuna and cod on ice while refrigerated and use them within two days. Live crabs and lobsters must be cooked immediately on the day of purchase, clams and mussels should be used within three days, and oysters within a week to 10 days. Any frozen seafood is best defrosted in a refrigerator overnight. Your to-go packaging can say a lot about your restaurant’s values when it comes to the environment – but it can also leave your food less protected in a couple of ways. Your packaging must be robust enough to keep food safe in transit and protected from external sources of contamination. On top of that, it needs to be made from food-safe components that don’t impact the taste of the food you’re transporting or break down when exposed to hot or cold – potentially affecting the safety of the food and its security in transport. It’s worth testing your packaging after delivery to see if it impacts the experience of your food – and talking to suppliers about your best options. As the sales of plant-based foods continue to take off, there is still some uncertainty about how to store and prepare these products to ensure they are safe to consume. Although these items are often swapped in for animal-based counterparts, their components and processing methods have far different impacts on their safety for consumption than animal proteins do. According to Global Food Safety Resource, many ingredients used in finished plant-based products are allergenic and have the potential to cause serious reactions. Further, the combination of ingredients including proteins, sugars and fats impacts the microbial load of plant-based products, which can lead to an increased likelihood for survival and growth of pathogenic microorganisms. Finally, the processing of the plant-based food – including the environmental conditions present, raw material used and the handling of the finished product – can all impact its safety. In addition to trusting your suppliers of these products, it’s important to ensure your team is well-versed in the proper food safety protocols for these foods so what you’re serving is safe. Restaurants have become increasingly adept at doing more with less in the past few years, but if you’re still trying to work at full capacity with a skeleton crew, you’re likely increasing your risk of foodborne illness. Condensing your menu, as well as decreasing your hours and available tables, can help you make sure you’re not letting critical food safety tasks slip through the cracks. Beyond that, if your operation looks a lot different than it did a few years ago, consider working with a food safety expert who can evaluate your current processes and suggest approaches that can help you save time and increase efficiency without compromising food safety. Fresh fruit and vegetables are so appealing on hot days. Just be mindful of the food safety risks these foods can carry. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were a total of 86 reported foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States associated with the consumption of fresh produce between 2010 and 2019. These outbreaks resulted in 20 deaths, as well as more than 4,000 reported illnesses, though these illnesses are often underreported. While it’s necessary to take safety precautions within restaurant kitchens, the risks start at the farm. As food safety expert Doug Powell mentions in a report from U.S. Foods, it’s important for operators to get to know their farms well and not be swayed by buzzwords like “natural” and “sustainable.” Understand their practices when it comes to irrigation, soil fertilization and hand washing. |
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