Author: Christine Dantz

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The Ultimate Food Safety Certification Guide To Controlling Fruit Flies In MN Restaurants

A food safety certification tip- creating a simple trap can be used to catch fruit flies

Fruit flies are one of the most invasive restaurant pests in MN this time of the year. While MN food safety certification training does not specifically cover how to control fruit flies, keeping them out of your facility is an important part of maintaining a clean and safe environment.

Food Safety Certification Guide To Controlling Fruit Flies

Food Safety Certification Guide To Controlling Fruit Flies

Keeping a clean kitchen is an obvious step towards preventing a fruit fly infestation. However, a simple surface clean will not be sufficient to avoid the appearance of fruit flies. A deep clean will be necessary to remove potential fruit fly nesting sites. Hidden breeding grounds often exist under refrigeration units, sinks, and designated preparation areas.

Fruit flies thrive on fruit and vegetable matter. Keeping fruit and vegetables from becoming nesting grounds for these pests is crucial. This is not only for keeping them out of the kitchen but also for food safety. Storing normally shelf-stable produce under refrigeration rather than on counter surfaces will keep your fruits and vegetables out of warmer temperatures. This is important because warmer temperatures are where fruit flies thrive.

Maintaining produce quality for items that are located in dry-storage locations is vitally important. A potato or squash that has begun to rot will not only attract pests. It will become a major breeding ground. This breeding ground has the potential to infest your entire workspace. Keeping your produce areas clean and free of spoiled items will greatly reduce your risk.

Even if you have taken all the necessary steps to prevent fruit flies from finding nesting grounds, they will inevitably make an appearance. The next step is to remove them from your work space.

Fruit fly strips are easily accessible at local hardware stores, but you must exercise caution when using them in food preparation facilities. MN food safety certification training states that all pest control chemicals must be kept away from food. Proper placement for fruit fly strips will be in places such as inside the lids of covered garbage cans, near compost containers and under sinks and other surfaces.

A Simple Homemade Trap

Homemade trap for fruit flies is not part of food safety certification training but it works

For areas where a fruit fly strip will not be an option, such as near food preparation areas and where they will be visible to customers, a rudimentary trap may be an alternative. These can be easily created with a shallow transparent glass or bowl. Fill it with a small amount of apple cider vinegar or orange juice. Then, place a thin film of dish soap on top. Fruit flies will be attracted to the sugar of the vinegar or juice. They will become trapped when the soap prevents them from breathing.

While MN food safety certification training does not outline steps for preventing these invasive pests, such as fruit flies, there are ways to control their presence and provide a safe and healthy food preparation environment.

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Special Conflict Management Best Practices For Certified Food Managers

Special Conflict Management Best Practices For Certified Food Managers

While you always strive for harmony in the workplace, every once in a while as a manager you will have to deal with employee conflict. This week we’d like to take a look at conflict management in the work place, and how certified food managers can deal with issues as they arise.

Special Conflict Management Best Practices For Certified Food Managers

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How a MN Certified Food Protection Manager Deals with Conflict

It’s impossible to completely eliminate employee conflict, especially in stressful environments such as the food industry, but with the right approach a certified food manager can build a staff that not only gets along but enjoys working together. Talking with human resource managers and food service supervisors, we’ve come up with a few common themes concerning conflict resolution.

  • Prevent conflict before it starts
  • Don’t let conflict fester
  • Involve your HR representative

Our first tip may be hard to do sometimes, but there are ways certified food managers can prevent conflicts from occurring. Many conflicts in the workplace arise from individuals’ dissatisfaction with their roles. If a role does not satisfy an employee, they may direct their frustrations towards their fellow employees. If you can identify individuals who are unhappy with their role, you may be able to give them an opportunity express their frustrations to you before they take it out on their coworkers.

The food industry is a stressful place by nature. Another way certified food managers can manage conflict is to keep morale high. This can vary from facility to facility, but there are ways to keep morale high under stressful circumstances. Some ways include social interactions, such as organizing company events that do not involve job duties, or making sure employees can take regular breaks.

Know When To Intervene

Even with the highest morale, it is inevitable that conflict will arise. These are times when a CFPM must decide whether to address the issue or let your employees work things out for themselves. It’s not necessary to intervene in every circumstance, but you must use your best discretion. If there is a conflict that you feel will be detrimental to your operation, you need to address it. Sometimes, letting your staff work things out for themselves will lead to further problems. If there are situations which you feel that you’re unable to handle, it may be necessary to bring in a representative from human resources that has been trained to resolve employee conflict.

We know that there is no cut and dry solution to resolving conflicts among your staff, so we’d like you to leave us a comment as to how you deal with these situations.

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Practical Advice For The Newly Promoted Food Manager

Practical Advice For The Newly Promoted Food Manager

Congratulations! You’ve put in your time. You’ve worked your hardest. Now you’ve been rewarded by being promoted to supervisor at your establishment. Your first order of business is to get your MN food manager certification online. Then you’ll be officially ready to take over.

Tips for the Newly Promoted Food Manager

Once the excitement dies down from gaining your first food management position dies down, it will be inevitable that you’ll feel some anxiety during the transition. We have a few suggestions that may help you settle into your recently gained role and responsibilities.

Our first suggestion is to consider that, since this is your first management position. It may not be wise to implement changes right away. Hopefully, your company already has a system in place to assist your food production in continuing to run smoothly and effectively during the transition. It would be acceptable to make adjustments to certain procedures where you see room for improvement. However, completely overhauling the way things operate should not be one of your initial objectives.

Practical Advice For The Newly Promoted Food Manager

Image credit: bowie15 via 123rf

Once you begin your new food manager duties, it’s important to find a comfortable management style. Many newly promoted managers often make the mistake of attempting to run their facility with an authoritarian style. When you assume your new role, it’s important to remember that you can lead your staff by working with them rather than attempting to manage every aspect of their jobs. Most employees perform better when they feel that they are trusted. There are also dangers if you choose to be too lax once you take over your supervisory role. Allowing your staff too much freedom can lead to production problems and the neglect of proper procedure. Our advice is to work closely with your staff and assess who is trustworthy and who needs more supervision.

Mold Your Operation To Reflect Your Managerial Style

As we advised earlier, it may not be appropriate to make huge changes as soon as you assume your new food manager role. However, once you have fully learned the current procedures and regulations and have become a leader of your staff, the time may be right. You can begin molding your operation to reflect your managerial style. When making changes, we suggest you always consult with whoever you report to before proceeding. You may have earned their trust enough to gain your position. However, they may not be comfortable if you make major changes to the way their business works without their consent.

We hear many stories from experienced professionals about their first supervisor job. We’re wondering if any of those seasoned veterans want to share some advice for those who are just now beginning their careers as a certified food manager.

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Timely Hints On Food Storage For Food Safety Certification

Timely hints on food Storage For Food Safety Certification

Proper storage of all types of food products, whether raw meats, dairy, produce or fully prepared foods, is essential in any branch of the food service industry. Improperly stored food can lead to loss of profits due to waste, food-borne illness due to cross contamination and wasted time while employees search for product. This post provides timely hints on food storage regulations that go beyond food safety certification.

Timely Hints On Food Storage For Food Safety Certification

Image credit: National Center for Environmental Health

Food Safety Certification MN Tips On Meat Storage

Meat storage tends to be the most misunderstood and poorly implemented procedure when it comes to food storage. Raw meat should always be stored below cooked product, but food safety certification MN states that raw meats should be kept separate during storage and production. One way to ensure the safe storage of raw products and prevent cross contamination is by storing products with lower cooking temperatures on higher shelves than those with higher temperatures. The properly organized refrigerator should look like this in descending order if you store raw meats on the same rack.

  • Raw steaks and full cuts of beef (145 degrees minimum)
  • Raw ground beef (155 degrees)
  • Raw poultry (165 degrees)

You will notice that we have not included seafood on our list. Even though seafood has a minimum cooking temperature of 145 degrees, we recommend separating it further from all other product. We feel that this is an important food safety certification precaution for food storage to protect those who have allergies to seafood and shellfish.

The optimal way to achieve proper storage is to have dedicated areas for meat, dairy, and produce. Larger outlets such as large-scale food manufacturing plants can easily achieve this by using multiple refrigeration units. Many restaurants, hotels, and smaller institutional facilities do not have this luxury, so diligence is important.

Tips for Streamlining Food Storage

The first tip food safety certification to ensure proper food storage is to label everything. Food labeling and dating should occur when received or prepared. This is the obvious first step, and is required to know for food safety certification in MN, but it is helpful to take labeling one step further than minimum requirements.

Label the sections, shelves and empty spaces in your refrigerators. Employees will be able to see the designated storage location for each type of product. It will also prevent the confusion of a storage system that constantly changes.

Another tip is to store produce and meat as far away from each other as possible. In many cases, this can be achieved by splitting refrigeration space in half. One side of a walk-in refrigerator will contain produce, the other meat products. Two separate refrigerators would be the ideal storage solution, but this is not always achievable. In cramped quarters, the labeling of all available space will streamline your storage process.

Proper food storage appears simple on paper, but implementing an organized system is well worth the vigilance.