How To Ensure Proper Sanitation In Restaurants?
Restaurants are places where people gather to eat, so cleanliness and food safety are two factors that we need to consider. Contamination of food products in restaurants can be quite dangerous, because hundreds of people could be affected in a short period of time. We have heard news of how restaurants are shut down due to hygiene issues. In more severe cases, food poisoning can happen, causing sickness among dozens of people. When people go to restaurants, they often expect that their foods have been prepared in a completely sanitary condition. From breeding bacteria to bug problems, restaurants are potential places where mishandling of foodstuff could happen unintentionally. In this case, we should make sure that local rules have been put into place and properly enforced by the restaurant manager. Food poisoning is often caused by bacteria contamination.
Contamination may occur when the dish isn’t properly cooked or when ingredients are not stored in a proper way. In a crowded restaurant, chefs and cooks are pressured constantly to deliver meals at faster pace. For the sake of saving time, they may start to take a few shortcuts and some of them can be quite risky and inappropriate. The restaurant management should make sure that their employees always do their job. Close supervision is needed, because one small detail that is neglected may result in serious food contamination. Employees should be care about their tasks and they need to be willing to perform all their responsibilities correctly. There are factors that may result in neglects, such as little recognition, long work hours and low wages. Managers should make sure that their employees won’t burn out quickly due to significant work pressure. Counters and tables where food preparation occurs should be clean to avoid any kind of bacterial contamination. There should be enough training on how employees should clean up their working places.
Some employees don’t even bother to wash their hands when they return to the work station, causing bacteria contamination more likely to happen. There should be a special hand washing station in the workplace that includes clear instructions. There are steps that they need to take, when using soap and paper towel. Wearing gloves doesn’t guarantee that we can keep food clean, because we may still touch dirty things with our gloves. No restaurant patron wants to have unwelcome critters in their food and we may need to discard food in the whole container, if we think that it’s compromised. If we want to keep dander and stray hairs out of the food, it’s a good idea to wear hair cover for cooking purposes, because regular hats are often not enough. Employees may need to attend training programs regularly, perhaps a few hours each month to assess their current skills and make some improvements based on the latest situations. One of the training should be about promoting the hygiene in the workplace. Employees shouldn’t resent surprise inspection, in fact they should be eager to show their consistency.