As effective as single-use gloves may be in protecting safety in your restaurant, they can also lull staff and guests into a false sense of security. If these gloves are part of the personal protective equipment your staff wears when serving food, ensure your team follows several procedures to ensure they are keeping food safe: Before donning gloves, wash hands thoroughly. Change gloves before touching ready-to-eat foods, before starting a new task, after handling raw meat and after four hours of continuous use. Gloves that are torn or become dirty outside of those times should be changed as well. Summer is the peak season for food poisoning, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The warm temperatures make it easy for chilled foods to enter the temperature danger zone and for foodborne bacteria to multiply. If you’re preparing and serving food outdoors or transporting foods for service outside of your facility, take some extra precautions when storing, thawing and transporting animal proteins. Store raw meat, poultry and seafood separately from (and/or below) other foods when refrigerating – and keep them refrigerated until ready to grill. When transporting these items, keep them at 40°F or cooler. These foods should be thawed in the refrigerator, in cold water or in the microwave – never on the counter. Digital tools and other systems that enable kitchen automation may at first sound like items suited to deep-pocketed, well-resourced restaurants, but they can help any restaurant save potentially significant money in the long term – by minimizing the labor hours required for tasks and preventing unsafe food from reaching guests. One simple example: Bluetooth thermometers that take food temperatures and then automatically add the results to a digital HACCP log. This removes a time-consuming, error-prone manual process from the to-do list, gives you a ready-made record to present during inspections, and provides a means of prompting staff when temperatures approach the danger zone. The thermometers can alert staff to the problem so they can take immediate steps to ensure the food isn’t served to guests. Food trucks can be a great tool for spreading the word about your business – but they can also pose challenges to your food safety procedures and make any slip-ups more visible to customers and passing foot traffic. Make sure you take good care with these major areas of concern when you’re operating away from your regular facility: Keep food at the correct temperature – don’t allow items that need to be refrigerated to sit out. Ensure staff uphold the hygiene of your business by wearing protective gear, handling food and money separately and with care, keeping long hair tied back and hands and nails clean, and cleaning messes and spills promptly to avoid attracting pests. The Tasting Table also mentions a couple of items that could be red flags for people considering whether or not to order from a food truck: a large menu (you’re more apt to be able to manage safe food storage and preparation if you have a simple menu) and a sink overflowing with dirty tools and dishes (it makes people suspect that washing up – whether utensils or hands – isn’t a priority for staff). Has a guest ever voiced a food safety concern to you about your restaurant? It’s not something you or your staff will ever enjoy hearing, but your response can go a long way in improving both the physical safety of your guests and the reputational consequences for your business. First, ensure your staff take any report seriously – even if it’s the first time they have heard such a complaint. Gather information from the person about what they ate and when, as well as any symptoms they have been experiencing. Check food safety protocols (and the food itself, if the item is still being served) to determine if there were any gaps in safety procedures at the time the person was served. Contact health authorities for additional guidance and then follow up with the guest or guests who have been affected – both to share updates on your efforts to investigate the problem and to make sure they are okay. The warmer weather on the way will beckon people outdoors – and to restaurants that serve outside. Even if you have been serving outside through the winter, your spring and summer setup likely requires some changes in protocol. Now is a good time to make sure your business is ready to shift gears and ensure that you have a number of safeguards in place: This includes weather protection like shades, heaters or maybe even cooling mists for guests; traffic protections – both foot traffic and auto traffic – to ensure roads and pathways next to and through your outdoor seating areas are free from obstructions; fire safety precautions and training if you’re using outdoor heaters or cooking outdoors; and food safety and sanitation procedures to ensure food is served safely and outdoor surfaces are cleaned and sanitized regularly. Gluten can be a tricky allergen. Even products labeled as gluten-free, as well as seemingly safe products like meat, may contain trace amounts of the protein. About 7 percent of the U.S. population are either gluten-sensitive or have celiac disease (and rates of celiac disease are rising by 7.5 percent annually). These people may experience abdominal pain, chronic fatigue or diarrhea when they eat gluten. There is gluten-sensing technology in development that aims to make it easier to detect trace amounts of gluten in foods, but in the meantime, restaurants’ efforts to accommodate gluten-sensitive guests can go far in earning their loyalty. A recent report from Food Management advises you have a checklist of regularly ordered foods and identify gluten-free items on the list, establish with vendors that you are committed to having gluten-free substitutes available, have a clear system to identify gluten-free items on your menu, and consider having your business validated by the Gluten-Free Food Service, which supports organizations looking to implement gluten-free safety procedures for the long term. The FDA’s new Food Traceability Rule is taking aim at sources of contamination to reduce the number of foodborne illnesses and deaths in the U.S. It means that food businesses from farm to table will be responsible for adhering to a standardized record-keeping process that assigns codes to potentially risky foods. Items such as eggs, leafy greens, soft cheeses and other items will carry these codes in an effort to more quickly trace these items and remove them from the supply chain in the event of contamination. On March 16th, the National Restaurant Association held a webinar about the new rule, as well as various exceptions to it and strategies to comply. Consumers with food allergies are a growing – and potentially loyal – group of guests. But as a recent QSR Magazine report indicates, a large percentage of restaurant staff aren’t equipped to identify and serve allergens safely. As this study found, more than 70 percent of restaurant staff believe the food they serve is safe but less than half of these employees had received allergen-specific training. At a time when the FDA’s list of major allergens continues to expand with the addition of sesame this year, are your staff aware of new labeling requirements and how to handle allergens safely? If your restaurant is making environmentally friendly changes like minimizing waste and using reusable, compostable or recyclable packaging products, the cleaning products you use can also be part of the story you share with guests. If you’re thinking about adopting greener cleaning practices or finding less toxic products to clean and sanitise your facility, look for the Green Seal, Environmental Choice Program, Greenguard or Chlorine Free Products Association labels on products, or ask Team Four about how you can safely make eco-friendly (and budget-friendly) changes to the products you use. |
subscribe to our newsletterArchives
July 2024
Categories
All
|