What Do Your Guests see? A Front of House Checklist to Ensure Quality and Safety of Food
Hi Everyone! Here it is September already – Food Safety Education Month! Where did the summer go????
As you may recall from the first blog posted in August, we talked about how Risk-Based Inspections are the new normal for most regulatory health authorities and the importance of day-to-day oversight to prevent foodborne illness and ensure quality of food served. In our opinion every staff member in the foodservice operation has a role to play in keeping food safe and meeting quality standards.
Being big believers in checklists, we created a 21-point checklist (see second August blog) to help address key risk factors in the back of the house–time and temperature controls, food from approved sources, cleaning and sanitizing, and of course, employee health and hygiene.
As promised, here is a checklist focused on activities that occur in the front of the house. We advise that before doors open each day (or before each meal period), a “walk about” be conducted to see what your customers will see. This task can (and should) be rotated among staff members. (Of course, supervisor still need to monitor practices throughout the operation to be sure policies and procedures are followed.) For any item that receives a “No”, corrective actions should be noted indicating changes made to meet the standard. Whoever has the assignment for the day, signs their name. This checklist has 28 items focused on staff and the facilities (think of these as people and place). Of course, you can modify this checklist to address specifics for your operation. But the key is to raise awareness that the responsibility for safe food belongs to everyone, and to train the eyes of staffers to recognize needed areas of improvement!
Risk Nothing!
Was that last 24 Hour “Bug” You Had Really a Foodborne Illness in Disguise?
Within this blog, I have discussed many foodborne pathogens: E. coli, Hepatitis, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter. But we’ve somehow managed to omit Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus).
30 Years Later: The Foodborne Illness Outbreak that Changed Food Safety
In January, we hit a major anniversary. One I am betting snuck by many of you – including me! January marked 30 years since the deadly 1993 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants on the west coast. The anniversary wasn’t on any of the major news networks that I recall. It did make it into a few newspapers, at least one or two of the newspapers that are left. It wasn’t until late-February that I realized it.
Does Temperature Really Matter when Washing your Hands?
In January, I reviewed the changes to the 2022 Food Code in my blog (check out Part I and Part II), and one change to the food code that I had mentioned, but didn’t discuss in-depth, was the change that lowered the water temperature a hand sink was required to produce to 85°F, as noted in Section 2-202.12 of the code. This requirement has been in place since the publishing of the 2001 Food Code, which required a water temperature of 100°F. Prior to this, 110°F was required (see the 1999 Food Code). So why the change and does water temperature when washing your hands really matter?
Hand sinks: Often Taken for Granted, but an Essential Part to Effective Hand Hygiene
Late in January, I received a question about hand sinks in a foodservice operation. The question pertained to school staff (teachers and aides) who were using a hand washing sink in the school kitchen. The question came as a matter of who was allowed access to the kitchen to use the sink, but the question itself caused me to go down a rabbit hole of requirements for hand washing sinks in foodservice operations.
