Best Practices for Food Safety

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Best Practices for Food Safety

Be on the lookout for situations that cause foodborne illness. Review the information below to see if there are areas of your operation that could be improved.

It`s up to management to set the standard -- a "do what I do" philosophy. If employees see management taking an active role in food safety standards by keeping areas clean, washing their hands, utilizing proper equipment, monitoring temperatures, and responding to spills, dirty tables, or dirty kitchen areas promptly, chances are the staff will follow suit. Setting the precedence and staying involved with it will drive the point home to employees.

If operators and managers take pride in the appearance and maintenance of a restaurant, employees will follow accordingly.

Major Causes of Foodborne Illness:

• Inadequate cooling or cold holding
• Time and temperature abuse
• Inadequate hot holding
• Poor personal hygiene
• Inadequate reheating
• Inadequate cleaning and sanitizing of equipment
• Improper use of leftovers
• Cross-contamination
• Inadequate cooking
• Unsafe food source

Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.

Foods held for service must be kept above 140 degrees F or below 41 degrees F. Make sure you have adequate refrigerated storage and hot and cold holding equipment.

Use the right equipment.

• Use the right utensils, such as long-handled spoons, spatulas, ladles and tongs.
• Install hand-washing sinks in every display cooking area.
• Make sure food handlers use gloves.
• Keep a bucket of sanitizing solution at every cooking or serving station.
• Make sure every employee has a thermometer and establish procedures for taking temperatures.
• Prepare only as much food as you need.
• Whenever possible, keep food in reasonable batch sizes. In high volume operations, utilize hot holding cabinets with controlled humidity to maintain temperature and product quality until food is ready to be put out on the line.

Monitor food temperatures often.

Check temperatures at least once an hour, if not once every half-hour. Involve front-of-house and back-of-house management.

Other Tips

• Make sure employees keep all foods properly wrapped and stored when moving them from front-of-house to cooking stations in the restaurant.
• Keep raw meats separate from cooked foods.
• Don`t mix fresh food in with food that has been sitting.
• Clean up all spills immediately.

New Products

Take advantage of the numerous new tools on the market to help operators promote food safety.

• Infrared "point, shoot and read" thermometers measure surface temperatures without ever coming into direct contact with the items.
• Temperature monitoring "strips" provide visual history of time and temperature exposure and require no power source.
• Infrared hand-washing stations sense the presence of hands to turn on and off the water. Hand-washing systems may also automatically control soap dispensing, water flow, and air drying.
• Hand-washing training can be aided by a "view box" with a black light to reveal unwashed areas not visible in normal light.
• Rapid-chill tubes can be filled with ice, inserted into and stirred around containers of hot food to speed cooling.
• Varying sizes of food pans filled with refrigerant gel keep foods at or below 40° F for up to 8 hours.
• Use color-coded cutting boards for dedicated uses.
• Cutting boards are now available with an anti-bacterial agent infused throughout.
• Use color-coded towels, tongs, and storage containers for dedicated uses.
• Use anti-microbial treated wipes.