Top 6 Food Safety Practices for Industrial Kitchens
Having a properly-managed industrial kitchen requires that you create and maintain a clean and safe food preparation environment to protect the health of your workers and customers. Statistics reported by the CDC show that over 48 million people fall sick due to foodborne illnesses, with about 128,000 hospitalized, and over 3,000 deaths recorded every year.
The people most vulnerable to these foodborne illnesses are pregnant women, young children, and the elderly.
The need for food safety at commercial kitchens is of utmost importance now more than ever, as there’s more awareness of the dangers that poor handling and preparation of food poses to public health.
The following are top six food safety guidelines for your industrial kitchen. These tips can help you to ensure that your restaurant is running in full compliance with your local food safety guidelines.
Designating a handwashing station where your workers can wash their hands will ensure they have clean hands before touching the food. This measure reduces the risk of cross-contamination.
All kitchen equipment and surfaces should be properly cleaned and sanitized before and after use.
If your employees wear gloves while preparing food, ensure they change their gloves regularly when moving from raw to cooked food to minimize cross-contamination which can result in food poisoning. Having a box of gloves stationed nearby will ensure that workers can change their gloves as often as is required.
1. Encourage Proper Kitchen Hygiene
Ensure that all raw foods are washed thoroughly before being cooked or served to the public.
2. Inspect Your Kitchen Regularly
It’d be best to inspect your kitchen’s condition often so you can discover hidden faults and leaks that can endanger the health of both your staff and customers.
Consider regularly finding more ways to improve your food preparation area.
All forms of leaks and damages to kitchen equipment should be spotted and fixed immediately. When planning repairs, lightweight welding machines can be used as it’s less sensitive to paint, corrosion, and dirt.
The self-inspection practice allows you to be prepared for external health inspections as most inspections are conducted unannounced, hence the more reason to be extra-prepared.
Not doing so is endangering the health of your customer. Food can transmit a lot of bacterias easily and lead to food poisoning which can have damaging effects on your customer’s health.
Check your staff’s health status before allowing them to come in contact with food in your kitchen.
3. Prevent Sick Workers From Preparing Food
It’s common sense actually to stop a sick worker from getting near the kitchen.
4. Cook According to Your Food Item's Safe Temperature
One thing that’s worse than preparing food in an unclean environment is undercooked or overcooked food.
You need to know your food safe temperature zones. Consider educating your workers about these guidelines so they can be more conscious of the food temperature.
Some certain foods should be cooked at a certain temperature, this heat treatment process can help to kill specific bacterias that are present in the food and minimize the chance of having food-borne illnesses when consumed.
If you’d be preparing any type of meat ensure that the temperature is up to the standard requirements. You can use meat thermometers to check the temperature of the meat. This measure is very useful in case you’re preparing different types of meat.
Ensure also that new workers are well-informed about these guidelines before they start working so that they can adjust to your safety practices.
This practice will create a cooking environment that promotes proper food handling and preparation.
Having an industrial kitchen or a restaurant is a great business since people are always eating out. Nevertheless, maintaining proper hygiene is an important requirement for running industrial kitchens.
Ensure that you serve delicious foods that are safe for consumption without any potential of causing harm to your customers.
Don’t forget that improper food handling can compromise the health of both your workers and customers.
6. Train Your Staffs on Food Safety Practices
Make sure your workers are aware of the food safety guidelines and adhere strictly to them.