A Fresh Start: Recommitting Yourself and Your Business to Food Safety in 2024
As we get settled into the new year and leave the hustle and bustle of the holiday season behind, it is the perfect time for reflection and improvement. Everyone is focused on self-improvement and how they can get ahead in the new year. While it is a great time to do so, don’t forget about your business goals, too. For foodservice operators and managers, hopefully this means reevaluating and recommitting to food safety, one of the cornerstones of a successful food business.
The importance of maintaining these high standards and establishing the food safety culture that we often talk about in this blog cannot be overstated. It ensures the well-being of your customers and employees and safeguards the reputation and success of your business. Here are some tips to help you recommit yourself and your foodservice operation to food safety in the new year.
- Food Safety Training: Offer the opportunity for your employees to attend food safety training on a regular basis. I always point out to managers that food safety knowledge is not the end all and be all – meaning that it will not change employee behavior per se, but employees cannot follow the correct food safety practice if they simply are uneducated and don’t know what should be done. Ensure employees who are involved in food handling and preparation have the certifications necessary for your location. Most jurisdictions follow the food code, which doesn’t mandate certification (you could demonstrate food safety knowledge on-site at the time of inspection), but certification programs are designed to ensure that employees learned the basics of food safety and are able to demonstrate it on a certification exam. This also ensures they are updated on industry standards.
Everyone is focused on self-improvement and how they can get ahead in the new year. …hopefully this means reevaluating and recommitting to food safety, one of the cornerstones of a successful food business.
- Enhanced Sanitation Practices: Start the new year with a thorough deep cleaning of your kitchen and food preparation areas. Pay attention to often overlooked areas, such as equipment surfaces, ventilation systems, and storage spaces. While you are working through the deep cleaning, update your cleaning SOPs and make sure your cleaning schedule has been updated to reflect changes in cleaning protocols, chemicals, any changes to equipment and/or facilities.
- Focus on Good Habits: Which good habit do you want to focus on? While it doesn’t matter to me, you might consider focusing on one of the top three issues that cause foodborne illnesses: personal hygiene, cross contamination, or temperature control. Pick one of these and make it your focus for the first part of the year. We call these keystone habits, and we find that changing or improving upon these keystone habits will help change your entire food safety culture. Will it be taking end-point cooking temperatures? Improving handwashing frequency and methods? Ensuring employees wash and sanitize prep tables when they start their job for the day? While the practice itself is important, what is more important is demonstrating to employees your commitment to food safety and starting to change bad behaviors, breaking old habits and introducing new, improved habits.
- Regular Inspections and Audits: This doesn’t mean you need to hire a consulting company to come in and do an audit, but plan for internal audits and rotate the responsibility among your management team. Evaluate how effective your current practices are, identify areas in which you and your employees can improve, and develop action plans to address those issue. Plus, if you don’t monitor them, how will you be able to ensure your new habits are starting to take hold?
Recommitting to food safety is not just a resolution; it’s a commitment to the health and safety of your customers, staff, and business. By investing time, resources, and energy into ensuring that your foodservice operation adheres to the highest food safety standards, you set the stage for a successful and thriving year ahead. Make 2024 the year your commitment to food safety sets your establishment apart. Risk Nothing.
Food Safety Considerations for the “New Way” of Dining, Part II – Back-of-house
In our first blog this month, we discussed the importance of front-of-house practices as we emerge from the pandemic this summer and into fall. Making your guests feel safe will be an important point as we welcome them back to our establishment. The safer they feel, the more likely they are to revisit and this could, in turn, be a competitive advantage for your business.
Food Safety Considerations for the “New Way” of Dining
Spring is my favorite time of year, as we head out of the winter months, welcome warmer weather, and increase the daylight hours. As such, we turnover a new leaf and welcome new life as our grass, trees, and perennials come out of dormancy. This year as the Coronavirus vaccine continues its roll out and we welcome a third vaccine onto the market this morning, perhaps this spring we are turning over a ‘new leaf’ in a much more profound way, as we see light at the end of the Coronavirus tunnel.
Developing Good Food Safety Habits
Good habits and habit development are something that has fascinated me for several years. If you’ve attended any the training programs or presentations that my colleagues and I have conducted through our Center for Food Safety in Child Nutrition Programs, you’ve likely heard me opine about the importance of habits and how habits are created. Many times, in foodservice operations we wonder why our staff don’t follow the food safety practices we have established in our operation. Perhaps they don’t wash their hands when they are required, perhaps they just don’t use the proper method of handwashing, or perhaps we find that they don’t complete our HACCP logs as often as our program dictates should occur. And while we can stomp our feet and say “it is their job, they should just do it”, it really isn’t that simple. We can’t order people to change, although if we could, business and human resources would be so much simpler.
Getting Your Playbook for Food Safety Organized
As anyone who has ever worked in a foodservice operation knows, from the time food is received in your establishment to the time it is served to your customers, following proper food safety practices is crucial. What many don’t often think about is this time really should extend from the time the manager places their orders with their suppliers (including which purveyors you utilize), through the time the food is consumed – even if that consumption occurs off your premises and days after the original order was picked up by the guest. This is something that has certainly been highlighted by the pandemic as customers across the nation are utilizing take-out, curbside to go, and third-party delivery options more so now than ever before.
