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.
Last month, we discussed the importance of a basic written infrastructure related to food safety, including standard operating procedures, written communication, and logs. While other priorities may have taken precedent over the last 11 months, as the new year gets into full-swing, have you ever stepped back to look at your entire food safety program and all it encompasses? Is your food safety playbook updated and in order?
While we could debate the legal liability and responsibility for food consumed off-site should a foodborne illness occur, if news of any illness resulting from food served in your establishment reaches the media, the negative consequences are unmistakable.
Over the course of the last year, your food safety system has changed. Maybe you did not write down what those changes were, but what you do to ensure food safety has certainly changed to accommodate the new systems that you established to operate your businesses during the pandemic and the increased demand for food to-go. Whether you took the time to develop new standard operating procedures, reevaluated hazards, established new preventative controls, or updated how you monitored and developed corrective actions, changes were sure to have happened.
If you haven’t explored what safety measures you need to include in your standard operating procedures for food that is taken for consumption off-site, visit with your team about your system and develop these protocols now. Be sure to develop information that can be given to your guests on proper holding and storage of food and how to reheat the food properly. While we could debate the legal liability and responsibility for food consumed off-site should a foodborne illness occur, if news of any illness resulting from food served in your establishment reaches the media, the negative consequences are unmistakable.
Take the time now to pull all this information together. Having one repository of all information – printed or digital – helps access the information you need, when you need it. Moreover, as we emerge from the pandemic and the recovery begins to our economy and our industry, you have the formal, written systems in place to help bring on and train new staff.
If it seems too dauting and cumbersome to pull all of this together, bring in your supervisors and staff to assist – remember, food safety is a team sport. As we discussed in our January webinar, Decision Making in Uncertain Times: Considering the ROI on Food Safety, a small investment now can pay off greatly in the end. After all, the teams that will be playing in the Super Bowl next weekend, didn’t show up without a game plan. They made it to the big game by being focused, well-organized, with each player being mindful of how their performance impacted the overall team. Risk Nothing!
A Little Poultry Safety Information
Chicken is the number one species of protein consumed by Americans – we eat about 80 pounds of it per year. Outbreaks of foodborne illness have long been associated with poultry and eggs usually by undercooking it or cross-contamination of other foods by raw poultry. Recent concerns about avian or bird flu put the direct focus on our fowl food with concerns about whether this awful disease can transfer from birds to humans.
The Basic Principles of Food Safety
Every food establishment uses, processes, and sells food in different ways. However, the general issues and key principles of food safety remain the same, whatever the style of the operation. All food safety training programs should contain the “big 3” factors that could cause food to become unsafe. Food must be kept out of harms way from human errors, but if you don’t train food workers what they are, they won’t know why these factors are so important to your operation. The basics can make us or break us in one or maybe two food handling mistakes.
Be Aware When You Prepare – Food Prep Tips
The subject of food preparation covers some very broad, basic principles within food safety, with many steps associated with “risk” in some recipes. Certainly, preparation steps are where the most mistakes have occurred if a foodborne illness should occur. Outbreaks usually happen when more than one mistake occurs during prep, but sometimes it only takes one. Cooking is the biggest risk for raw foods, but all foods become ready-to-eat foods at some point in final preparation steps and that’s where the most care is required.
Food Gloves & Latex Allergy Education
Politicians joke about the endless stretch of rubber chicken dinners they may consume in an election year. For people with a latex allergy, such a prospect may be no laughing matter. While latex serves as an effective barrier glove material and has the best fit because of its elasticity, the risks associated should not be ignored. The solution is not simple and many options are available for operators today. It should always be mentioned that handwashing (before putting on gloves) is always the primary barrier to contamination and gloves are considered a good secondary barrier.
