Food Safety Blog and CFPM Resource Hub

April 25, 2022April 18, 2022

Powerful New Reference Tools For Assisted Living MN ServSafe Managers

Every food business outlet has its own unique challenges, but due to the susceptibility of the residents in assisted living facilities, ServSafe food managers should be extremely careful with the food they serve. In order to protect the most vulnerable to illness, the Minnesota Department of Health as put together an FAQ for ServSafe Managers of assisted living facilities. Let’s take a look at some of the outlined rules that affect MN ServSafe managers in these facilities.

MN ServSafe Managers’ Guide to Assisted Living Kitchens

The Minnesota food code defines a highly susceptible population as a group that is more likely to contact foodborne illness due immunocompromised conditions or age. Assisted living facilities commonly serve these groups, and some other outlets the Minnesota Department places in this category includes:

Custodial Care Facilities
Specialized Nutritional Centers
Senior Centers
Medical Health Care Facilities

In their guide to the application of the food code to assisted living facilities, the Minnesota Department of Health outlines the key factors to serving an elderly or medically compromised population. The reinforce the need for:

Oversight of Food Handling Procedures
Health and Hygiene
Ready-to-Eat Food Safety
Time and Temperature Control
Cross-Contamination

You may look at this list and say to yourself, “I remember this from MN ServSafe manager training, so why do we need new outlines from the health department?”

The point of these new fact sheets is to emphasize the most important aspects of keeping food safe in assisted living facilities, and these measures give us the best chance of preventing foodborne illness.

Just like other food processing facilities, assisted living centers require a certified food protection manager to oversee food safety and training. The CFPM should also monitor employee hygiene to ensure nobody works sick and that proper handwashing procedures are followed.

It’s also vital to document time and temperature control procedures, especially when cooling prepared food and reheating ready-to-eat foods. Most facilities that serve the sensitive populations usually prepare food in advance in order to serve larger groups all at once. If you prepare your food ahead of time and reheat it for service, make sure you review cooling and temperature control procedures.

April 18, 2022April 11, 2022

The Dirty Truth About Food Safety Managers Air Drying Dishes

When training staff how to wash dishes by hand or proper procedures using a warewashing machine, food safety managers should always teach air drying dishes completely before they are put away. It may be tempting to stack drying dishes to save space or use a clean towel to speed up the process, but air drying offers the safest way to dry dishes from a food safety standpoint. In order to make this common practice it helps to explore the science behind air drying dishes in your kitchen versus other methods.

The Science Behind Air Drying Dishes for Food Safety Managers

Some food service employees may think that “dry is dry,” so why does it matter how we get there? Why can’t we simply use a towel or just put dishes away as soon as they’re done being washed?

Towel drying clean dishes produces a major cross-contamination risk and actually soils the dishes as you dry them. Imagine using the same bath towel every time you step out of the shower, but you’re showering hundreds of times a day. We’re not sure what you’re doing to require that many showers, but what you do on your own time is up to you.

Over the course of continued use, a damp towel can harbor bacteria, sanitizer solutions and be a breeding ground for foodborne illness culprits. All it would take is for one contaminated plate for your entire warewashing inventory to become a food poisoning nightmare.

Stacking your dishes before they dry is also a recipe for disaster. Most sanitizer solutions need to air dry to fully evaporate off of the surface of dishes. Stacking your dishes could trap the moisture and sanitizing solutions together increasing the risk these chemicals might come into contact with a customer’s meal. If moisture is trapped between stacked dishes for great lengths of time, it can also attract bacteria, mildew and even insects, so make sure dishes dry completely before storage.

Experienced food safety managers know the best solution to air drying dishes is to provide a stainless steel drying rack where dishes can be stored to dry. Make sure all dishes have space for air to travel through to promote drying and never line the shelves with towels or other materials that may absorb moisture and promote bacteria growth.

Do you have a well thought out solution for air drying your clean dishes?

April 11, 2022March 23, 2022

ServSafe Food Manager Training and Latex in the Kitchen

When allergies are discussed in ServSafe food manager training, we often cover allergen culprits that are ingested such as nuts, shellfish and dairy, but there are other allergens such as latex that causes a reaction on contact. While severe latex reactions to minimal contact are rare, they can happen so it’s best to be prepared in the event one of your staff or a guest suffers from a latex allergy.

How ServSafe Food Managers can Prevent Allergic Reactions to Latex

It’s important to make sure that ready-to-eat foods are never touched with bare hands, and in order to prevent bare-hand contact many ServSafe food managers stock their kitchen with latex food-service gloves. This will be the most common source of a reaction to those who are allergic. If any of your staff is allergic or sensitive to latex, you’ll most likely see a mild to severe skin reaction including:

Excessively dry skin
Itchy rashes
Cracked and bleeding skin
Numbness in the fingers

While you may never see an allergic reaction outside of your kitchen staff, there are some who are sensitive to minimal contact from latex powder or food that has come into contact with latex. If you have a guest that is severely allergic to latex, they may experience:

Throat soreness or swelling
Nasal irritation or bloody nose
Gum, mouth or tongue irritation and swelling

If you’re a ServSafe food manager who has an employee who is sensitive to latex, or want to be prepared in the event you have a guest alert you to a severe latex allergy, we suggest you keep some vinyl food service gloves on hand. Vinyl gloves may not fit as snuggly as latex, but it’s best to be prepared for those who are allergic.

Do you provide your staff with an alternative to latex food-service gloves?

April 4, 2022March 22, 2022

CFPMs Take Advantage Of The New Meal Kit Market

Restaurant patrons have taken to cooking at home more over the past few years, and this gives food businesses and restaurants the opportunity to take advantage of this new market. If you’re looking for a way to reach new customers and give them a chance to cook their favorite menu items at home, you may want to consider offering meal kits with everything they need to prepare their favorite dish. Since you’re not cooking these meals in-house, there’s a different set of challenges involved. Let’s consider what Certified Food Managers ( CFPMs ) should consider when preparing meal kits for customers to cook at home.

CFPMs Food Safety Challenges for Take Home Meal Kits

Meal kits can help boost your business, but certified food protection managers must make your staff aware of the unique food safety hazards is the key to doing it safely. Your kit can include raw protein ingredients, fresh vegetables, cooked products and dried spices, so there are several different food handling rules you have to consider.

The biggest concern will be cross-contamination during preparation and packaging. Make sure all fresh ingredients are stored away from raw products at all times. If you sell these kits at high volume, have your certified food protection manager designate space in your walk-in refrigeration so there can be no risk of cross-contamination during storage.

The highest risk of cross-contamination may occur during packaging. Many of these meal kits fit into one large box, so keeping raw food separated from fresh ingredients can create some difficulties. If you do use one large box for these kits, we suggest tightly sealed and separate containers for raw ingredients. We’d also recommend taking it a step further and placing these sealed containers in a separate box within the larger crate for dual-layer protection. It’s also important to consider some sort of cold pack or ice bag to keep cold foods cold during transport.

Since you’re not cooking these items in your establishment, temperature control is left up to the consumer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take steps to give them the information they need to cook every ingredient properly. Include incredibly detailed recipe cards that list proper cooking temperatures. You can experiment with cooking times of meal kit ingredients in your restaurant and include that information, but CFPMs should remember not every oven will cook at precisely the same rate. Include warnings that will indicate the properly cooked temperature for each ingredient. You may even wish to go so far as to offer probe thermometers at an additional cost.

Are you using meal kits as a way to reach new customers?