The importance of food safety in avoiding foodborne illness, with its potential severe adverse health outcomes, and the imperative to comply with laws for the protection of consumers and businesses make the activity indispensable in foodservice establishments.
Thus, this blog focuses on the ten critical food safety activities to handle food safely and in a manner that helps protect your customers’ health and your business from liability. Let’s get started!
Personal Hygiene Practices
Importance of Personal Hygiene
Hygiene is an important factor in food safety. Whenever we keep ourselves clean, we start to minimise the risk of polluting food with germs such as bacteria and viruses. Needless to say, this is meaningful because polluting food could lead to serious health hazards for consumers, irrespective of very small contamination.
Unlike most of us, food handlers work very close to food, and it’s obvious how: if your personal hygiene isn’t good, then every time you touch your face or your hair, you transfer a few of those germs to everything you feel compelled to touch afterwards. Dirty hands shouldn’t be in food, for sure, but more importantly, personal hygiene isn’t just a public health issue; it’s a food safety issue.
Key Practices
Washing Your Hands Correctly and Properly on a Regular Basis: Washing your hands is one of the most effective methods to prevent the spread of contaminants. Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Wash your hands after sneezing, coughing, or touching any surface that might have been contaminated, and try to do it on a regular basis after using the bathroom or before eating something raw.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Proper use of gloves, aprons, and hair nets (i.e., PPE) prevents direct contact between your body and the food as you handle it. Always change your gloves often, and make sure your PPE is clean and in good condition at all times.
Staying healthy and reporting illnesses: Check in with your doctor at least annually to make sure you’re fit for work. Let your boss know when you’re ill–vomiting, diarrhoea, a high temperature, for example– and report these infections, and don’t serve food until you’re cleared. Likewise, your employer should have policies in place encouraging reporting of illness so you don’t fear for your job security if you feel ill. You don’t want to get your customers sick.
Proper Food Storage
Temperature Control
The temperature at which it retains its colour and flavour: Firstly, all food should be refrigerated to a precise temperature according to its type. Perishable foods refer to meat, dairy products, and seafood. They should never be kept at room temperature, which is around 21°C. Such products need to be put in the refrigerator to maintain a temperature below 5°C to keep them safe from bacterial growth.
Secondly, frozen food is colder than refrigeration. Fresh food will remain good for a longer period if placed in the freezer where the temperature is -18°C or lower.
While refrigeration reduces bacterial growth, it does not stop the growth. We need to check the temperature from time to time. Using a reliable thermometer will help your units maintain the right temperature to keep your food from spoiling.
For hot food, temperature is important; you must keep it between 63°C and above; this avoids bacterial multiplication and unfit food products. Temperature control plays an important role both in the storage and holding of food before serving.
Organised Storage
First In, First Out (FIFO) Method: Simply and ingeniously, use the oldest stock first, and therefore, have a minimum possibility of waste. This can be supported by labelling food items with their dates of arrival or production, and thus the stock that first entered the store should be the first used. Also, by devising a way to place such food items at the front of shelves, etc., you’ve got a good FIFO system.
This, besides keeping food fresh, also guarantees that you comply with food safety regulations. Through the constant application of FIFO, no spoiled or expired food can be used in your preparations.
Separating Raw and Cooked: Raw foods and cooked foods should be kept separate so that bacteria can’t come from the raw to the ready-to-eat food. Raw meats, in particular, carry bacteria that can easily spread. Keep raw meats at the bottom of your refrigerator so their juices can’t drip onto other foods.
Using different bowls and containers and covering raw and cooked foods properly goes a long way towards maintaining food quality and safety. Secondly, labelling helps prevent mix-ups and ensures that all types of food (such as raw food, cooked food, and food mixed with spices) are stored in the correct location.
Thorough Cleaning and Sanitizing
Cleaning Schedules
All these cleaning activities must be part of the daily routine; cleanliness is key. Daily These food prep areas must be cleaned daily using towels to wipe down surfaces and utensils and sanitising or disinfecting high-touch areas (handles, knobs, etc.). Floors should be swept or mopped to remove food particles and spills that would otherwise attract pest infestations.
Daily: Regular, daily cleaning avoids the accumulation of grime and bacteria that can potentially ferment on crockery or worktops, as well as alerting the cook to any urgent issues such as spills or stains.
Weekly: Tasks often include deep cleans of the floors and walls around the home or flat and might also involve specific pieces of equipment that need to be cleaned or descaled, such as fridges, freezers, coffee machines, and dishwashers.
This weekly scheduling of deep cleans means that cleaning can take into account how certain areas might be neglected daily (e.g., the canteen kitchen) and make sure they are regularly sanitised; it also enables inspection and maintenance work to ensure the equipment is using resources most efficiently and is operating safely.
Monthly: Monthly cleaning tasks include more in-depth maintenance items such as cleaning vents, checking for pest activity, and deep-cleaning storage areas. They are an important component in keeping the entire facility in good order.
Adhering to an arbitrary cleaning schedule will not ensure hygiene; it will just ensure that we tidy up regularly. We may unnecessarily increase the risk of contamination if we do not take measures to avoid cross-contamination and follow established hygiene rules while cleaning.
Use of Correct Cleaning Agents
Appropriate Agents for the Right Surfaces or Equipment: Sometimes the right agents mean the right cleaning detergents for the right surfaces or equipment. Different surfaces need different cleaners. For instance, stainless-steel surfaces need selected cleaners; otherwise, they may get damaged by unsuitable ones. On the other hand, glass surfaces need cleaners that leave no trace of water stains.
The proper choice of cleaning agents allows us to get not only cleaned but also well-preserved surfaces, and it is very important to keep following the manufacturer’s recommendations about application, dilution, and usage.
Sanitising: Sanitising–different from cleaning–is the step where chemicals with either anti-bacterial or bactericidal properties are used to kill pathogens and bacteria on surfaces. The sanitizer should be applied to all surfaces after cleaning any food debris and either air-dried or rinsed, depending on the instructions.
Frequently sanitise often-touched surfaces, including door handles, countertops, and controls for equipment. Enforced sanitising prevents the spread of bacteria and viruses, keeping your kitchen a safe workspace for food preparation.
Safe Food Preparation
Preparation Area Cleanliness
Clean Surfaces and Equipment: Clean work surfaces with a suitable cleaner and detergent, along with a sanitizer, before and after each use, particularly when switching from one food type to another, to kill bacteria that can contaminate served food.
Knives, cutting boards, and other equipment should also be cleaned and sanitised. Consider the use of a colour-coded system for cutting boards and utensils to avoid cross-contamination (e.g., red for meats, green for vegetables). This simple but effective practice can go a long way towards ensuring the safety of your food.
Additional areas to be included in the general cleaning regime are any high-touch areas, such as faucet handles, refrigerator doors, and switches. These can be reservoirs of bacteria carried over to food and other surfaces.
Cooking and Heating Temperatures
Safe Internal Temperatures of Various Food Items at 100°C: When we cook food properly, we kill harmful bacteria. Different types of food require different temperatures and times to make them safe for eating. For instance, food items like poultry should have a 75°C internal temperature, whereas for ground meat, we need at least a 70°C internal temperature to make it safe to eat.
By knowing these temperatures and keeping foods at these temperatures, foodborne illnesses are prevented. To achieve this, not only looks (for example, colour or texture) are important; we must trust, but always verify, that a food thermometer accurately reads the core temperatures.
Why is it important to use food thermometers?​
Food thermometer is a very important thing in any kitchen. Because everyone wants to check any food and how much time they cook, a food thermometer has recently become a very useful thing for that. When we cook food, our main aim is that after cooking, it must be properly cooked.
Simply stick it into food and wait until the probe stops flashing, then read the temperature; it shows whether the food is cooked or not. If you want to know how accurate the measurement is, the best way to get an accurate reading of the food’s internal temperature is to insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the food, away from the bone and fat, and let it rest for about 15 seconds.
Calibrate your thermometer regularly so you can have full confidence in its readings. A food thermometer not only ensures food safety and quality but also allows you to achieve your desired degree of doneness.
Cross-Contamination Prevention
Separate Equipment and Utensils
Colour-Coding Cutting Boards and Pieces of Cutlery: Specific cutting boards and pieces of cutlery can be used for specific types of foods only. A colour-coding system can help avoid cross-contamination of different types of foods. Assign one colour for raw meat (red), another colour for vegetables (green), and yet another colour for raw fish (blue), etc. Raw foods never touch ready-to-eat foods.
This is a simple practice to help reduce the chances that bacteria from raw foods contaminate other items and is also an easy way for everyone working in the kitchen to follow food hygiene procedures–make sure to clean and sanitise these boards and utensils regularly.
If you keep the tools you use for one food entirely separate from the tools you use for another food, you significantly reduce the risk of cross-contamination. This principle is basic to keeping a kitchen clean from a food safety perspective.
Proper Handling and Storage
Avoiding Cross-Contamination: Proper handling and storage of food is crucial. Keep raw meats on the bottom shelf of the fridge where the juices from raw meat won’t drip on other foods, and store raw and cooked foods in separate, sealed containers.
Keep all food in covered, sealed, and marked containers to reduce the possibility of contamination. Make sure to inscribe what is inside and the date it was stored to help you use it up or rotate it out.
If cooking meat, it is best to use different boards or utensils for the raw and cooked items and to clean these thoroughly between uses. These steps will ensure that surfaces and utensils used to prepare food are clean.
Waste Management
Proper Disposal of Food Waste
Sorting and Waste Disposal Process: Any food waste should be disposed of without any mess or trouble. There are mainly three types of waste that come from kitchens: proper food organic waste, plastic cups, bottles, and other waste. To avoid all types of waste and disposal creating any mess, they should be segregated. If all the waste is segregated, then managing it would be very easy.
To make sure that waste is kept out of the environment, it is helpful if it is deposited in clearly marked bins. Only use compostable bags when disposing of organic waste to keep it separate from other types of waste and avoid contamination. Keeping waste bins covered with a tight-fitting lid will also prevent odours and pests.
To avoid unexpected compost in a clean kitchen, keep waste bins clean and disinfect daily. This will reduce the chance of odours and microorganisms being created and accumulated.
Regular Waste Removal
Regular Removal of Waste to Avoid Pests: Regular waste removal is necessary to avoid pests such as rodents, flies, and cockroaches. If the waste isn’t removed frequently, flies and rodents will visit the house and store food contaminated with rodents’ urine. Cockroaches are considered one of the most powerful health risks due to their complex lifestyle.
Set a routine for waste reception and disposal where bins are emptied at least once a day, or more frequently if required. Taking the trash out as soon as possible reduces the risk of pests getting to it and will keep your kitchen messy and hygiene-free.
Pest Control
Regular Inspections for Food Safety
Pest infestations are often caught too late. Regular monitoring helps prevent pest infestations. Common indicators include droppings, gnaw marks, and nests, along with unusual odours or sounds.
Go from one place to another, everywhere. Storerooms, dumpsters, and less-used rooms are important places to be aware of when taking care of the kitchen area. Constant inspections will help you detect a problem before it gets worse and avoid serious consequences!
It will help you to keep track of the pattern and identify those areas that might be receiving more attention at frequent intervals. Your pest management plan must include scheduled inspections to keep your building pest-free.
Preventive Measures
Seal Up Entry Points: The easiest way to keep pests out of your kitchen is to prevent their entry in the first place. Seal up cracks and holes in walls and floors and along the edges of doors and windows with caulk or steel wool. Install door sweeps and weather-stripping if you have gaps along your door frames.
Keep a very high standard of cleanliness throughout the kitchen. Swiftly clean up spills and food scraps and remove them from the counters. Put foods in sealed containers and remove trash from bins regularly (rodents are attracted to any food waste).
Food Safety Training
Regular Training Programs
Importance of a Training Programme to Workers: An ongoing training programme is crucial to making sure the staff are informed of the latest know-how of food safety. Food safety requirements and regulations will become more stringent to comply with more stringent health standards. Ongoing training programmes for staff can ensure everyone keeps himself or herself abreast of the latest best practices in food safety.
Topics could range from personal hygiene (e.g., frequency of handwashing and proper methods) to good food handling and storage (e.g., the importance of keeping cooked foods separate from raw foods, storing fruits and vegetables properly, and so on). Hands-on training certainly helps to ingrain these practices into the staff and makes it easier for them to translate knowledge into action on a day-to-day basis.
Practising these guidelines regularly also acts as a type of refresher course, ensuring that key concepts and procedures are not forgotten. This ongoing training keeps food safety top of mind for everyone.
Interactive and Participative Training Techniques: Make learning more effective by using interactive and participative training techniques. Bring in videos, demonstrations, and scenario-based, real-life situations in the training programme to make it more effective.
Enhanced learning can also be achieved by inviting staff participation and dialogue in training sessions, where each person can share stories and struggles. This can help to build a culture of learning where people teach and learn from each other.
Regular checks and feedback need to be made to see whether the training is working and in which areas more training is required. The training programme will need to be developed and improved as the process goes on.
Certification and Compliance
Ensure all staff are certified in food safety. Staff certification and the establishment of clear and consistent food safety processes ensure that staff are both knowledgeable and competent to maintain standards, both of which are formally recognised through certification.
Certification exists for everything from basic food hygiene standards (the Level 2 Food Hygiene Certificate) to supervisory positions (the Level 3 Supervising Food Safety in Catering).
First, all staff must undergo the relevant certification. This means that not only does the restaurant meet the relevant requirements of regulatory bodies, but it also reassures the customer that the restaurant is meeting the required food safety standards.
Obligation to comply with rules and requirements for food safety: Compliance with the rules and regulations of food safety is an important part of the food service at any place. Regular audits and inspections ensure all practices work as per the regulation.
Employers should maintain a log of the training and certification activities performed. Avoid waiting for the three strikes law to kick in; be proactive about food safety management when the time comes.
However, a culture of staff growth and accountability will keep your establishment in compliance. Maintaining a regular review and refresher of policies and procedures will keep your establishment up to date with changing standards.
Monitoring and Record-Keeping
Temperature Logs
Record Storage and Cooking Temperatures: Food safety is challenging if you don’t keep a record of the temperature readings of storage areas (the refrigerator and freezer) and of cooked foods. Most home accidents take place the first time foods go above 205F. Stored foods become poisonous above 130F, so check your storage freezer temperature regularly.
Each note should include the date, time, and temperature. By keeping a record of the temperature taken at different times, it is much easier to track temperature trends early on and see if the equipment is working properly. When food is constantly checked and recorded, it is less likely to become contaminated with bacteria.
Having logs with accurate records of temperature maintenance will help a lot on such occasions, as they like to go through such records when inspecting places for their food safety. It shows the level of commitment to food safety at the food outlet.
Utilisation of Digital Tools for Temperature Monitoring: When it comes to temperature monitoring, digital tools make it easier to keep a temperature log (a record of all temperatures over a given period). A temperature monitoring system can be set up to automatically measure temperatures and record them in real-time. This equipment can alert you if there is any change in temperature from the safe range.
These systems remove the element of error that is an inherent part of the human experience, provide real-time accurate data, and are easily storable and retrievable so that historical data can be accessed and compliance can be verified.
Cleaning and Maintenance Records
Documenting Cleaning Schedules and Maintenance Tasks: Cleaning schedules and maintenance tasks should be documented. This documentation should include the frequency and procedures followed during the cleaning of an area. This prevents the cleaning of critical areas from being missed due to poor record keeping.
In each entry, the date and time should be stated, along with who performed the cleaning or maintenance task. This adds an element of accountability. Looking back frequently at the documentation will reveal any gaps in performing the cleaning as required.
Detrol check tablets are just as important. Equipment performance is a bundle when robbed of regular maintenance. Without timely services, helpful devices can stop working altogether and hamper workplace efficiency. Keeping a checklist helps to schedule timely servicing and repair in advance, helping to maintain workflow faultlessly.
Advantages of a Good Recording System: A good system will give you a clear picture of all your food safety activities. It helps to identify patterns and act on them proactively. With more details, holds are often forgiven as the inspector can see that the business has a lean-to and continues to act proactively in food safety.
These records can be produced to evidence compliance with food safety laws if they indicate that proper procedures have been followed consistently. Such regularity of procedure may be essential in leaving no room for doubt as to the validity of the certifications on which a food business relies or as to the grants of extra funding in which it is indulged.
Food Safety Audits and Inspections
Internal Audits
Periodic Audits: Conduct periodic audits regularly, perhaps weekly, at the store level to ensure that food safety standards and regulations are completely adhered to. Some qualified specialists are available to be hired for four purposes regularly if your store does not have a full-time food safety specialist to deliver the food safety training and managerial sessions where possible contamination of your store could occur.
All aspects of food safety should be audited internally, from employees’ hygiene to food storage and preparation methods to hand and machine washing. Create an audit checklist that covers all the areas of food safety so that no critical hot spots are left out. Regular, periodic audits allow us to address a lot of potential issues before they happen.
Involving staff in the audit process can help them better understand and implement food safety behaviours and promote a culture of continual development and accountability among team members. Documenting the findings of each audit and the corrective actions taken can help track progress.
Preparing for External Inspections
Passing Health and Safety Inspection: It is not a good idea to relax when faced with an external inspection because it can harm your reputation, not to mention endangering the lives of various stakeholders. It is important to conduct regular internal audits to ensure that everything is in place before any external inspector arrives.
Maintain written records and documentation and ensure it is at the fingertips of your restaurant if an inspector asks to see it. You can present temperature logs, cleaning schedules, and maintenance records as evidence that your restaurant is meticulous about food safety practices.
Pre-inspection Walk-Through:
1. Open and photograph the walk-thru form to record the facility’s appearance and any compliance concerns; use the initials of facility personnel.
2. Cleaning: check all areas, floors, doors, fire exits, windows, smoke hoods, and visible parts of ceilings; investigate odours; consider and photograph all complaints.
3. Verify midnight cleaning: equipment, surfaces, floors, scratched walls, debris, airbrakes–check that your employees are developing maintenance and sanitation standards.
4. Equipment: inspect operation and condition; was all equipment manufactured, tested, and inspected according to national standards; equipment deficiencies: missing, broken, inadequate guards, attachments; record dates of last cleaning, calibration, inspection, PM, and repairs.
5. Product storage: rack storage–separation, temperatures, condition of stored products, signs, tagging, laboratories, shipping codes, hot, cold, and ambient storage–condition of floors, walls, and roofs; check for signs requiring cleaning or pest control; record whether you know the location and availability of chemicals for corrosion control. Recalling where equipment is stored.
A third recommendation is training staff to interact with inspectors in a friendly and patient manner. Under prepared staff, clients might feel confident enough to answer inspectors’ questions competently and knowledgeablely in safety matters. Moreover, given this positive, helpful attitude, inspectors might become attuned to the clients’ good attitude and cooperation.
Conclusion
In this blog, we have discussed 10 essential food safety activities such as food safety practices linked to personal hygiene, managing food storage, carrying adequate and proper cleaning and sanitation, utilising safe food practices with till baking of food, prevention of cross-contamination, food waste management allied with proper waste disposal process, coping with pest control in food storage as well as in food preparation surroundings, food safety training for staff members, food safety monitoring and recording, and lastly, carrying periodic audits and inspections of food safety methods.
It is widely known that proper food safety practices greatly contribute to the promotion of public health as well as the operational effectiveness of any food business. The goal of every food establishment, from the smallest vendor to large chains, is to maintain the safety and hygienic status of food preparation areas as well as to protect their customers from disease and themselves from lawsuits and legal actions for violations. The key to achieving these outcomes is committing yourself to maintaining the implementation of these food safety activities regularly.