An important part of healthy eating is keeping foods safe. Here is a list of food safety guidelines for the commercial kitchen that food establishments can follow to ensure proper and safe food handling.
How to Keep Food Safe in Your Commercial Kitchen: 7 Food
Safety Tips
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| Food safety practices in the kitchen |
What is Food Safety?
Food safety
refers to better handling, preparing, and storing food in a way that prevents
food from becoming contaminated and causing food poisoning and reduces the risk
of individuals becoming sick from foodborne illnesses.
7 Food Safety Tips
for Your Commercial Kitchen
Restaurants
and other similar commercial food establishments should follow the standards
when it comes to safe food handling.
The Food
Safety Modernization Act has helped to prevent the distribution of unsafe food
but foodservice operations still need to be vigilant in the handling, storing,
cooking, and serving of food to their customers.
Below is a
list of tips that food establishments can follow to ensure proper and safe food
handling.
1. Hand Washing
In any
establishment, a safe food handling procedure starts with the simplest step -proper handwashing.
It's
important that from the very beginning kitchen staff that are frequently
dealing with food practice proper hand washing at all times. This simple
practice dramatically reduces contamination of food and also prevents
cross-contamination.
Food
establishments should also consider having a dedicated handwashing sink in the
kitchen where soap and warm running water is provided.
Proper
technique involves scrubbing the entirety of the hand, under the fingernails,
and the part right above the wrists for approximately 20 seconds.
2. Food handling safety
Employees
should at all times wear the recommended clothing when handling food. This
includes clean uniforms and hair restraints. Aprons are optional but highly
recommended.
Wearing
artificial nails as well as jewelry and other items that could potentially fall
off and contaminate food should be avoided when working with and preparing
food.
And since
the contact of food with bare hands can contaminate and make the food unsafe to
eat, employees should wear clean gloves or use utensils when they handle food.
These guidelines should be adhered to by all staff, whether kitchen or serving.
3. Preventing
cross-contamination
Food that is
ready to eat and those that are raw should be at all times kept separate
especially during the preparation phase.
Designated
areas of the kitchen are allotted for food products that are raw and such areas
should be away from food that is about to be served.
Most
commercial kitchen items are labeled or color-coded to prevent any cross-contamination.
Make sure staff
know to always follow this kitchen protocol. A standard operating procedure
checklist in line with the recommended HACCP standards can help ensure proper
sanitation of kitchen products and equipment.
4. Maintain refrigeration
A commercial
kitchen would not be able to operate properly without proper refrigeration.
Refrigeration
equipment should ideally have a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit and below.
Freezers, on the other hand, should keep food products at 0 degrees Fahrenheit
or below.
Make sure
the thermometers of this equipment are monitored regularly with the option of
installing an alarm should temperature start to rise above safe levels. Kitchen
staff or delivery personnel must minimize the period that frozen food is taken
out of refrigeration.
Ideally,
only during the inspection, movement from one storage to another, and before it
is cooked that frozen food should be taken out of cold storage.
5. Food warming
Typically,
food is reheated to 165 degrees Fahrenheit and kept above 140 degrees
Fahrenheit to prevent any contamination. This means that food establishments
should invest in food warming equipment.
Food should
never be left at room temperature for prolonged periods and should be placed in
a shallow container before it is refrigerated to 40 degrees Fahrenheit or
below.
Make sure
proper cooling technique is followed since a lot of foodborne
diseases are due to improper food cooling.
6. Food quality assurance
The quality
of the food product should be kept throughout the food preparation process.
This starts by making sure food deliveries are inspected thoroughly the moment
it arrives, before it is placed into storage, right after it is taken out of
storage, through food preparation, and right before it is served.
If, at any
point, the food is damaged or showing signs of spoilage, it should be discarded
immediately.
It's also
crucial that the temperature of food is checked the moment it is delivered.
If the
temperature is above the 40 degrees Fahrenheit threshold, the delivery should
be rejected. Whether a 5-star New York restaurant or an independent small hamburger
restaurant, quality checks on food products is mandatory.
7. Track shelf life
A common and
effective way for restaurants and other food establishments to track the shelf
life of food is with the use of a labeling system that is color-coded to ensure
food is rotated properly.
Fresh and
new products can be marked using green stickers. Foods that need to be consumed
within 24 hours can be labeled with yellow stickers.
Food
products that need to be consumed immediately can be labeled with red stickers.
Food products past their expiration date should be discarded immediately.
FINAL
THOUGHTS
Food safety
handling is crucial if commercial food establishments want to serve safe and
high-quality food.
The main
goal is to ensure the contamination of food is minimized or altogether
eliminated.
To make sure
that each and all bacteria are eliminated, food should be cooked above its
minimum internal temperature.
To ensure
that the right temperature is reached, food thermometers can be used with
thorough cleaning done before and after they are used to prevent
cross-contamination.