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ServSafe Manager Certification and Public Health

ServSafe Food Manager Certification and Public Health

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Gaining your ServSafe food manager certification qualifies you to oversee food preparation in a restaurant or production facility and it comes with an obligation to ensure that your product is safe for the consumption of the public. This responsibility to the health of your customers is unique to the food industry and at many times requires supervisors and food service workers to make sacrifices that adversely affect them in order to protect public health.

ServSafe Food Manager Certification and Public Health

Image credit: Wikipedia

The requirement to stay home from work when sick often puts food service workers in a bind. Many other professions don’t have this restriction, allowing professionals outside of the food industry to go to work when under the weather. Food service employees must use up sick days, vacation time or forgo a day or two of pay to prevent the spread of their illness.

Evidence of food workers ignoring their health symptoms and working anyway becomes evident in news reports of Norovirus outbreaks. The Norovirus is easily spread by infected workers or exposed workers who fail to wash their hands properly. Whether it’s only one guest or several, diners who contract the Norovirus take that out into the world once they leave the eating establishment. This results in putting their friends, family and co-workers at risk of second-hand contamination.

The good news is that most supervisors take pride in their responsibilities and follow what they’ve learned during ServSafe food manager certification training. Many of them sacrifice for the greater good and stay home when ill and even days after to recover. An important key is to take care of yourself in order to reduce the chances of becoming ill and staying healthy enough to work every day.

Working with food comes with many challenges that don’t exist for most of the workforce. Are there any issues you’d like us to discuss in the future?

Online_HACCP_Training_and_Cash_Handling_Practices

Online HACCP Training and Cash Handling Practices

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As one of the leaders in online HACCP training and food safety certification industry, we like to dine out often, and we’ve noticed a trend that has caught our attention. Many local eateries are no long accepting cash as a form of payment. At first this may appear to be a way to limit lost funds by keeping all transactions digital or reduce the risk of robbery. While these are probably the most influential decisions to go cash free, we think this also helps reduce the risk of food-borne illness.

 

Online HACCP Training and Cash Handling Practices
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The Public Health Benefits of Cash Free Restaurants

Most cash in peoples wallets aren’t crisp bills fresh from the bank. It’s been around for a while and on its journey from person to person, it’s picked up a few residents, namely bacteria. There are many of the common culprits of bacterial contaminates on paper cash and coins, but the potential also exists for something more exotic to have come into contact with your money before it got to you.

We know from online HACCP training that you must wash your hands properly after handling money. This should be a given in every establishment. Handwashing has proven to be an effective way to greatly reduce the risk of contaminating food. But a few other steps could be taken to keep food safer when collecting payment from guests.

In the digital age a solution can be found around nearly any dilemma. Simply going cash free reduces contamination risks. Modern point-of-sale systems allow customers to pay without handing a credit card to a server or cashier. This reduces contact between foreign contaminates and food service workers even further.

It’s still perfectly acceptable and possible to continue accept cash. Just make sure proper handwashing techniques are taught and enforced. You may also wish to employ a designates cashier who never or rarely handles food.

What are your thoughts on establishments that no longer accept cash?

Food Saftey Certification Guide to Outdoor Weddings

Food Safety Certification and Catering Weddings

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For many caterers, business picks up when summer and wedding season arrives. One of the challenges of a wedding is that many of these events happen off-site and in unfamiliar locations. Some occur in rental halls with limited or no kitchen space and many take place in every caterer’s biggest challenge, the great outdoors. These types of events stretch catering supervisors memory of food safety certification training and require extra careful preparation.

Food Safety Certification Guide to Outdoor Weddings

Knowing your off-site venue helps you prepare for efficient and safe food service. Multiple reconnaissance trips give you insight into your challenges and help you plan accordingly. Whether transporting menu items of monitoring buffet line, you must remember certain rules to prevent food-borne illness from ruining the couple’s big day.

    • Food must be handled hands free
    • Ample utensils must be available if no dishwashing station is present
    • Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold

Any staff members preparing food must follow hand-free regulations. Having food-service gloves or serving utensils present offers a readily available solution. If there are no restroom facilities, a mobile hand washing station may be required.

Keeping hot and cold foods out of the danger zone reduces the risk of spreading contaminates. Chafing dishes or a portable warmer to keep food hot is essential, and frequently replenishing the ice keeping cold food displays below 40 degrees goes a long way towards giving guests an enjoyable experience rather resulting in memories of the sickness of the day after. If there is a passed appetizer reception, food can only be served for any hour before being replaced with fresh items.

When catering an outdoor wedding or any event, notifying guests to potential allergens such as dairy, nuts and shellfish is important. Having a menu placard in front of each dish that contains allergens alerts those who cannot consume these items to their presence.

If you’re a caterer, do you have any tips for preventing the spread of illness at large outdoor gatherings such as weddings? If so, feel free to share.

MN Food Manager Certification Training and Menus

MN Food Manager Certification Training and Menus

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Whether written in chalk on a sandwich board or displayed in elegant fonts in a leather bound folder, menus exist in nearly every restaurant around the world. They also play an important role in food safety and preventing the spread of food-borne illness. In a recent food manager certification training session we engaged in a discussion about what style of menu best promotes food safety, and this week we’d like to share our findings.

Food Manager Certification Training for Keeping Menus Safe

If a restaurant places menus on the table, guests inevitably pick it up. Sometimes food spills on menus and used eating utensils come into contact with the surface. Each of these things potentially transfer bacteria onto these menus that can cause food-borne illness. Different types pose different levels of risk, and some of the menu solutions we’ve looked at include:

  • Paper
  • Laminated
  • Overhead signs
  • Digital

Some food managers use disposable paper menus to prevent one guest from spreading an illness to the next. This is effective only if the menus are disposed of after each diner uses them. Paper menus come with the added cost of the regular purchase of paper goods and the time it takes to print them before, after and even during service if supply runs low.

Laminated menus last longer than paper menus, but an increased risk of spreading bacteria comes if cleaning is infrequent. We’ve visited restaurants where laminated menus feel slick and greasy and may not have been sanitized. Laminated menus beat paper as far as cost effectiveness goes, but sanitation should occur between guests.

From a food manager certification training perspective, an overhead sign poses no real food safety threat to guests. This or a sandwich board offers a good solution for establishments that take orders at a counter rather than provide table-side service.

Many restaurants experiment with the use of digital menus. These range from a tablet left by a server or a touch screen permanently resting on the table. Using a device as a menu may raise operating costs, but they give your customers a unique experience as games and videos give them extra entertainment while waiting for food to arrive. It helps speed up service during busy times as guests can place an order without a server’s assistance. The screens of these need cleaning often as guests will frequently touch them.

Do you consider the spread of food-borne illness when deciding what type of menu to use in your facility?