How Safe is Your Commercial Kitchen?
Should you be responsible for one or more kitchen in the busy and vibrant city of Melbourne, you would be sure to know that your clients have healthy appetites both for what they eat as well as for the safety of doing so. In the circumstances, hygiene and cleanliness ensuring the wellbeing of your clients will naturally be your main concerns.
There are many things to keep in mind when you are looking at making sure that your kitchen meets the standards that have been set by the health code, but the truth of the matter is that for even the most conscientious of kitchens, it can be easy to get sloppy.
Your staff have to be taught to keep the cleanliness of your kitchen flaw proof. A lot is at stake here. Food and table service must leave customers feeling good. That?s what keeps the goodwill of your restaurant on a consistent high. The very last thing you want is for them to feel sick. News of a bad experience spreads very fast by word of mouth and can be pretty dreadful for your restaurant.
The most basic way to make sure that food looks fresh is to make sure that the utensils it is served in is clean. If they have been washed recently, make sure that the excess water is dried. If the dishes have been wiped with a cloth make sure no fibre from the wipe is sticking on or there are no oily fingerprints on the edge.
There are some very basic things that can be done to reduce the chances of a food poisoning outbreak at your restaurant. First, make certain that your staff are educated on matters of food safety. Verify that they are aware that spoiled food does not necessarily look or smell different from food that is good, and let them know that food must be kept hot or very cold in order to make sure that bacterium doesn’t grow on it.
Here are a few more fundamental rules of kitchen hygiene. Keep all food always under cover, care being taken to keep cooked and uncooked foods apart. No attempt must be made to adopt methods to step up the defrosting process such as keeping food in open air. Importantly, your staff must rinse their hands both before and after food usage of any kind
Also take care that the various hot and cold places in your kitchen meet the requirements of the local legislation, and always store meats on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator in order to keep juices from dripping down onto other foods. These are the basics for a commercial kitchen, but remember that as a general rule, the busier the kitchen, the more stringent food safety procedures need to be.
Washing hands before cooking or serving food, covering the head to avoid strands of hair ending up in the chicken soup and not spilling the oyster sauce all over the customers lap are good starters to make your eating joint a popular one.
Author: Malcolm J. Richmond is experienced in Food Safety Programs and his advice will make sure you have the most effective regulations for HACCP Food Safety.
