Food safety advice for visitors in the kitchen

Food Safety Advice For Visitors In The Kitchen

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The kitchen of most food businesses can be a busy place, and often you may have vendors, maintenance staff and other non-food service personnel either working or passing through your kitchen. Since these guests are not technically food-service workers, is there any outlined food safety management training necessary for these individuals? Food safety managers are obligated to cover every foodborne illness risk, and this may mean taking the time to assess what steps need to be taken for non-staff kitchen visitors in your establishment.

Food Safety Advice For Visitors In The Kitchen
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Food Safety Precautions for Visitors in Food Preparation Areas

Before we take the time to discuss precautions, it may be important to outline who should and should not be visiting your kitchen. There are many individuals who have business there, but before we invite grandma and the neighbors to hang out on the line there should be some ground rules.

When considering outside visitors, kitchen managers need to ask staff to respect the boundaries of the kitchen. If visitors don’t have a business-related purpose in food preparation areas, they should be asked to wait in public spaces. It’s not that we’re against friends and family stopping by; it just adds potential safety risks and possible foodborne-illness hazards to have untrained personnel in the kitchen.

Outside individuals who may have business in your establishment may include:

  • Vendor representatives
  • Delivery personnel
  • Maintenance staff
  • Corporate managers

Your vendors and food service suppliers should already have some situational awareness in the kitchen and may know better than to get in the way in a busy environment. However, if they’re handling food that is being inspected, sampled or delivered, it’s best to ensure bare-hand contact rules are followed. The same goes for delivery drivers. Most of these types of kitchen visitors have already been trained in some respects for food safety, but it’s always prudent to keep an eye out for potential contamination risks.

If you have planned maintenance whether it’s hood vent cleaning, equipment repair or any other type of work being done in your kitchen that does not involve food preparation, take steps to ensure that all food product is removed from areas where work is being done. Even if it’s something as simple as having new shelving installed in dry storage, the potential for contamination can be high in these situations.

Finally, larger food businesses, especially those with multiple locations, may have corporate higher-ups stop by. Most of these types may not have had food safety management training but may look to get involved in some food preparation activities during their time in your kitchen. Be prepared to respectfully ask them to not handle food if that is not the nature of their visit.

How do you deal with visitors to your establishment?

Food Safety Training Tips

Excellent Food Safety Training Tips You Need To Know About Clean Refrigeration

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You count on your refrigeration units to keep food cold, but neglecting food safety training for maintenance can result in much worse scenarios than malfunctioning equipment. Besides the hazards of food possibly being stored in the danger zone due to a poorly looked after walk-in; dirt, mold, mildew and other contaminants can come in contact with your product even if your cold storage is kept at the proper temperature. Let’s take a close look at some often overlooked aspects of refrigerator maintenance that can lead to foodborne illness risks and we will provide some food safety training tips to make your job easier.

Excellent Food Safety Training Tips You Need To Know About Clean Refrigeration
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Refrigeration Maintenance Tips for Food Safety Training

Most food businesses should already have a cleaning plan in place for the interior racks, walls and floors of their refrigeration units, but there are several aspects of refrigerators that are forgotten, especially in walk-in units. Every so often it’s important to clean and maintain refrigeration:

  • Door seals
  • Condensers
  • Drain lines

Cleaning the seals or gaskets of every refrigerator in your establishment will help keep warm air from outside forcing your equipment to work harder. Rubber seals can also be a breeding ground for mold, especially if your doors are not sealing properly. The condensation from the temperature difference inside and outside of your fridge could accelerate mold and mildew growth which could end up in your food. When you perform your regular interior cleaning, make sure to wipe down and sanitize your door seals and inspect for any damage which could be allowing warm air inside.

Condenser coils tend to collect dust and moisture creating an environment for contaminant growth that could fall into food product. Your food safety training should include a review of cleaning these coils at least once a month to prevent buildup. These coils can sometimes be behind a service panel or on the back of the compressor.

Drain lines are notorious for mold buildup due to the near-constant drip of condensation. Due to the complexity of cleaning these lines, we recommended you seek out a professional technician to service and clean your larger refrigerators once a year.

Have you taken the time recently to check on the cleanliness of your refrigerators? Do you have any additional food safety training tips for others?

Revealing New Certified Food Manager Debate: Day Dots Versus Labels

Revealing New Certified Food Manager Debate: Day Dots Versus Labels

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The Minnesota health code requires certified food managers to utilize a date marking system to keep tabs on when food was produced and stored in their business, but it doesn’t require a specific type of marker. We’ve asked some of our Certified Food Manager students where they stand in this date marking controversy, and we’ve heard a lot of different answers, so we thought we’d explore the different types of methods used.

Revealing New Certified Food Manager Debate: Day Dots Versus Labels
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An Online Certified Food Manager Guide for the Date Marker Debate

Just for a quick review, certified food managers should date mark all food that is:

  • Ready to eat
  • Stored for over 24 hours
  • Refrigerated

All food prepared or moved from its original packaging should be marked with the date it was made or stored, but which marker is the best? We’ve heard several suggestions, but two stand out; day dots and preprinted labels. Certified food managers have strong opinions on the subject, so we’ve had some lively discussions on the pros and cons.

On one side of the certified food manager date marker debate, day dots are color-coded to a specific day of the week, giving a quick visual of when the product was made, but they do have the drawback of limited space to include any details besides the date. Preprinted labels come in a variety of types but often come in a format allowing for the date, what is in the container, the staff member who produced it and the expected shelf life. These labels can be more expensive than day dots, take more time to decipher and could be harder to remove from plastic and metal containers.

During our certified food manager discussion, We also heard of some other creative solutions that may be more cost-effective, but might not be as convenient as using day dots or pre-outlined labels. Masking tape or painter’s tape has been suggested, but oftentimes this will leave glue behind on your storage bins creating a hassle for your dishwasher when containers are empty. We also heard of writing directly on plastic wrap that covers the container. This unfortunately doesn’t meet the standards as plastic wrap can easily be discarded or broken by a felt pen, and please don’t ever consider writing directly on food product, even with edible ink.

Where do you stand on the date marking debate?

MN CFPM Rules

What To Know If You Are Suddenly Left Without A MN CFPM

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All Minnesota food businesses are required to employ a certified food protection manager (CFPM), but what happens if a restaurant or other food facility loses theirs without warning? Do they have to shut down temporarily until they hire or train a new one? Fortunately, the MN food code isn’t that strict and does give some leeway for replacing a certified food manager who departs suddenly.

MN CFPM
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The Certified Food Manager Training Window

The good news is that the regulations for hiring or training a new certified protection manager in Minnesota allow for 60 days from the departure of one CFPM to the date they are replaced. Food protection certification is not transferable from one staff member to another, so be proactive in scheduling training or hiring a new CFPM as soon as possible.

If you’re looking to promote from within, there are two training options when it comes to gaining certification, online and in person. If you’ve lost a MN CFPM suddenly, online certified food protection manager classes may be the quickest and most convenient method of gaining certification. Online food certification classes can be taken at any time and contain all the materials necessary to pass the exam. In-person classes do happen rather frequently if you prefer to engage with an industry professional with experience running certified food protection manager courses. With instructor-led courses, you’ll also be able to take the exam on the same day as the training where online course study and food certification exam scheduling may have a gap.

The 60-day grace period doesn’t just apply to losing a CFPM suddenly, new establishment openings and re-openings after a temporary closure also receive this same grace period.

We never like to see sudden management departures, but do you have a plan if your MN CFPM has to depart on short notice?