This year has provided a stark wake-up call about the importance of protecting the safety of our food. Up-and-coming technology called hyperspectral imaging, which can detect pathogens in food, optimize the uniformity of a product’s quality and even help with precision agriculture, has been gaining ground rapidly in the food safety industry this year. In the coming months, it’s an additional feature to watch for and discuss with food suppliers and distributors, particularly as more foodservice operations adopt speed-scratch food products to help boost efficiency. Learn more about the technology here (https://bit.ly/2JcwyHC).
Holiday gatherings and buffets go hand-in-hand – well, they did until 2020. If you have served food buffet-style in the past, you have no doubt reinvented it for the current environment or replaced it altogether. If you’re still offering this service in some form, consider these precautions to help protect safety: Have your staff (wearing PPE) serve each guest and provide new dishes and cutlery. Enforce social distancing and mask-wearing for guests waiting in line. Serve items in self-contained, miniature form. Provide the option of a scaled-down buffet sampler for each table to avoid having guests circulate – or even offer a “buffet in a box” take-away option. Have staff (again wearing PPE) circulate with trays carrying pre-portioned items, cocktail-party style, that they can serve to each table. Buffets are like a kid-in-a-candy-store kind of experience. How can you replicate that feeling while protecting everyone’s safety?
This year has asked so much of restaurant operators – as innovators, entrepreneurs, managers and neighbors. While it’s natural for people in the service profession to look for ways to serve guests well, taking care of staff – and themselves – can take a backseat. But the well-being of a restaurant’s entire team trickles down through your business and impacts all of your relationships. The slower period this winter may be a time to refocus on strengthening your team from the inside out. Mental health in restaurants was a central theme of the recent Chefs’ Congress in Lisbon. According to this report in Forbes, the event incorporated videos, workshops and techniques designed to allow owners, chefs, cooks and workers to better understand how to manage teams, partner with human resources, and increase awareness of workers' rights and risk factors. It even offered anonymous therapy sessions for restaurant professionals. As awareness of these issues grows, such events can provide teaching tools and other resources for operators regardless of where they do business.
This is a time of year when people (your employees included) want to gather with friends and family, and perhaps travel to celebrate the season. How can you ensure they don’t come to work with the virus and inadvertently spread it to others? First, be understanding of their desire to be with others – but also reinforce their responsibility to keep your workplace safe. Employees should not come to work with any symptoms of COVID-19 (or flu, for that matter). If an employee has plans to travel outside of the country, make sure they understand and follow quarantine rules upon their return – or at least provide you with a doctor’s note that clears them to work. If you do have a case of COVID-19 on your team, inform your other employees of their potential exposure but maintain the confidentiality of the infected person. Addressing it quickly and with transparency will prevent rumors from spreading and demonstrate to customers and staff that you can be trusted to protect their safety.
‘Tis the season to enjoy not only big holiday spreads but also the leftovers that come after. As you order and store ingredients and prepared dishes, make sure you’re up to date on the dating of all items you’re saving for later. Check to make sure your inventory is organized according to first-in, first-out standards to minimize spoilage and waste.
We’re all getting used to doing more tasks remotely lately – and your food safety audits may be heading in that direction if you aren’t already conducting them remotely. These audits tend to be conducted either via cameras installed onsite or via a handheld camera that employee uses to do a walk-through of your facility. Food Quality & Safety advises that you conduct employee training on how to present your facility professionally via video, and also manage the related risks carefully – particularly when it comes to data security and keeping sensitive business information safe.
The sharp rise in off-premise dining likely means that most, if not all, of your menu is being eaten a good 30 minutes after it’s prepared. How well does it survive the journey from chef to customer? Just as you have likely had to give your business an update to operate effectively right now, your off-premise packaging may need some fine-tuning to make sure it keeps hot foods hot, cold foods cold, and protects food safety overall. Companies are coming to market with new packaging to suit the times – and some operators (like Garry Kanfer of Kissaki Omakase in New York) are even designing their own solutions. If you’re looking for improved methods of packaging foods and protecting them during transport, you’re apt to find plenty of models that may help.
Even after we have a vaccine for COVID-19, the virus will still be with us and there will be a portion of the population especially vulnerable to it. Much like we have adapted our kitchens and food preparation practices for those with gluten allergies, we will likely have to make long-term changes to how we operate to protect against the coronavirus. Think about the ventilation in your facility, the level of interaction among your staff, technology that enables fast and contactless payment, and seamless pick-ups. Are there changes you have made in recent months that feel temporary but could be made permanent – and might help customers feel safer with you in the long term?
What’s a holiday menu without potatoes, carrots, turnips and the many other root vegetables of the season? Just take care to wash them carefully before you slice into them, since the crevices in these vegetables can trap dirt and contaminants that you don’t want to pass on to other parts of the food. Before peeling or slicing these items, soak them in cold water for a few minutes before rinsing them under running water while scrubbing them with a clean brush.
Even during a normal winter with its typical viruses, overzealous cleaning would be expected. This year, your staff may be taking even more precautions to keep everything from doorknobs to POS touchscreens clean. Make sure they know the difference between cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting – and which solutions are to be used for which surfaces. Wiping down a surface with the wrong solution can not only be ineffective, but it may also damage the surface being washed (as in the screens of tablets or other electronics). If you need a reference, the National Restaurant Association provides some guidance.
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