![]() Amid the focus on keeping and serving food at the right temperature, it can be easy to overlook contamination risks in the beverages you serve. Ice machines can be havens for mold and other contaminants if they are not cleaned, sanitized and handled properly – so much so that you can find TikTok videos of HVAC service people discovering a range of unappetizing health risks lurking in ice machines. Beyond regular cleaning and preventive maintenance of the machine by a professional vendor, make sure your staff know how to scoop ice safely and are trained to take notice of insect activity, improper drainage, dust accumulation and other potential hazards in and around the machine. ![]() Spring is in sight – and as the weather warms, gathering outside to sample food becomes even more appealing. If you operate a food truck or otherwise serve your food offsite, it can be even more challenging to adhere to the standards you follow to keep your guests safe from foodborne illness. As you prepare for warm-weather offsite events, ensure that the facilities you’re using (or the adaptations you’re planning) allow for proper cleaning and sanitation, hand hygiene, plumbing, refrigeration to safe temperatures, pest control and waste management. ![]() Cold winter nights are just right for restaurant delivery. How confident are you in the food safety commitment of those bringing food to your guests? Whether they are third-party vendors or your own staff, their approach to transporting food can impact everything from the temperature at which an order is received, to whether the food of an allergic guest is safely kept separate from other items. Any new packaging you have introduced in recent months can call for additional adjustments in how orders are handled. What mechanisms do you have in place to assess your delivery safety risks so you can make adjustments as needed? ![]() Frontline workers embody your restaurant’s food safety culture – but what they represent to the public isn’t always understood at the top of the business. A recent webinar from Food Safety Magazine indicated that senior leaders in an organization tend to rate their culture as 68 percent more mature than their frontline colleagues do. That’s even though frontline managers make up 60 percent of the workforce and manage 80 percent of it. To bridge the disconnect, experts on the webinar advised gentle nudges to steer frontline food safety in the right direction. These nudges could include physical markings on floors and walls, group handwashing stations that make activities like handwashing more social, daily routines in which staff must answer a food safety question or provide input and the supervisor responds with positive feedback or an action item they are taking as a result, social normative messages that provide feedback about the team’s overall knowledge about a particular area of food safety, or social recognition – like a time-off savings account that can be tapped by a team that wins a contest around food safety. ![]() More than 60 percent of all foodborne disease outbreaks in the U.S. are caused by restaurants. If your restaurant has not, to your knowledge, caused a foodborne disease outbreak, that doesn’t mean it isn’t causing sporadic cases of illness that can occur outside of an outbreak. In a recent webcast from Food Safety Magazine, Hal King, managing partner of Active Food Safety, cited the example of one strain of Salmonella that the CDC traced backed to a single restaurant over the course of 10 years. The pathogen was on different surfaces around the restaurant over that period of time, causing sporadic illnesses there. If you hear of a guest becoming ill, consider it a warning sign about your food safety and a reason to investigate customer complaints you have received in the previous month. What patterns do you see that might help you zero in on problems in your processes? ![]() Ten to 15 percent of Americans identify as vegetarian or vegan, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group – and three-fifths of U.S. households now eat vegetarian at least on occasion. These figures represent an all-time-high, and they are likely to expand even further, considering half of all vegans are young adults in their 20s and 30s, according to research from Faunalytics. As more of your guests look for vegetarian or vegan options, what are you doing to avoid cross-contamination with meat? At a time when restaurants are scaling back on their real estate, it may be difficult to avoid grilling a veggie burger on the same surface as a beef burger. Some restaurant brands have even stepped away from calling their vegetarian items meat-free due to the possibility of cross-contamination. If you have more guests looking for purely vegetarian or vegan options, tools like PTFE baskets or mats may be able to help keep these items separate on the grill. ![]() At your restaurant, do in-person safety audits feel like a relic of the pre-pandemic era, or have you reverted back to those routines? In a recent report from Modern Restaurant Management, Kari Hensien of RizePoint says the shift to remote audits and self-inspections may be one of the best things to come from the pandemic: It has made it possible for restaurants to audit more frequently and with a combination of tools. As a result, audits may feel less like intimidating events and more like ongoing check-ups designed to support continuous improvement. While an in-person presence has its benefits too, taking full advantage of technology as an auditing tool can help you spot small problems more quickly and with greater precision. When the required course-correction is minor and feels less punitive, staff morale is likely to benefit too. ![]() Your restaurant has likely had to make big changes to adapt to new consumer habits in the past few years. If you’re juggling a new mix of order streams, you may also be adjusting to new traffic patterns, as well as to new food preparation and service areas required to support changes to your business. This can create opportunities for cross-contamination, as well as missed temperature checks or overall quality checks. Make sure your food and safety training accurately reflects your work flow and – if your technology isn’t already helping to direct traffic – that your team knows how to respond to (and ensure the safety and quality of) orders coming from multiple sources. ![]() Your food safety record is in the hands of your staff – and any employee retention problems you’re experiencing can chip away at your restaurant’s institutional knowledge. What’s more, poor retention creates a greater likelihood that risks will be overlooked and cause problems. Taking some simple steps to retain staff can have a positive knock-on effect on your safety. Help your team avoid burnout this winter: Using scheduling software that allows staff to select and swap their shifts can help, as well as having (and communicating) a clear policy ensuring that everyone is healthy when they come to work. Finally, know what boundaries you’re unwilling to cross to accommodate a demanding guest – standing up for a employee can go far in protecting morale and retaining your overall team. ![]() Chances are you have people from a range of generations on your team – and the mix is always shifting. That has an impact on how your food safety training is received and how it must be delivered as a result. According to operators at the 16th annual Nation’s Restaurant News Food Safety Symposium, multigenerational teams often need varying instruction. For example, the fast-casual brand Noodles & Company employs workers across four generations – and the restaurant’s director of food safety and quality assurance says the brand’s younger workers respond best to 30-second instructional videos, while their older team members tend to respond best to written cards. If you’re getting mixed food safety results in your restaurant, it may be worthwhile to take a closer look at your training and seeking feedback from staff about how they learn best – whether due to generational differences or simply preferences. You want to make sure your most important lessons are being delivered in ways that are most likely to be absorbed. |
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