Keep your MN kitchen running smoothly. We’re sharing real-world ServSafe & NEHA Best Practices to help you train staff and ace your next health inspection.

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Instructive Food Safety Certification Tips That Will Keep Kids Safe

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If you are a Minnesota food safety certified professional at a daycare center, after-school facility, or restaurant that caters to younger diners, you know that kids have different tastes than adults and often have special dietary needs that must be accounted for. We’ll provide a food safety certification guide on creating a safe and healthy delivery environment for kids.

Food Safety Certification Tips That Will Keep Kids Safe

Food Safety Certification Guide For Serving Children

The first thing to remember when serving children is that they are more sensitive to food-borne pathogens and can have more severe allergic reactions than adults. If your operation serves children regularly or on a large scale, we strongly suggest that you:

  • Pay close attention to heating, storing, and holding temperatures
  • Remove potential allergy risks from your facility
  • Provide gluten-free and low-sugar options
  • Offer a variety of healthy options

In previous posts, we have discussed our first tip in great detail, but it is essential to be diligent when serving at-risk groups such as children. If you are unsure what the proper heating and holding temperatures are, you may wish to review Minnesota Food Code temperature guidelines.

Secondly, removing all allergen risks from your facility may be a good idea if you operate a daycare center or other business that exclusively caters to children. Remember that peanuts, tree nuts, and seafood are high-risk allergen items; keeping them out of your kitchen will eliminate the risk of accidentally exposing a child to them.

It is becoming more common nowadays to come across children who have been diagnosed as gluten intolerant or sensitive to sugar. You can ease many parents’ fears if you supply their children with a gluten-free and low-sugar substitute for their meals.

If you serve the same group of children daily, offering a wider variety of meals is a good idea. Even though some children are OK with the same lunch several times a week, you’ll provide better nutritional options if you vary the meals. While most children would love to eat hotdogs daily, you’ll appeal to parents if you offer a wide variety of healthy meals.

Serving Kids at Restaurants

Remember that parents are looking at what their kids order. There are benefits to restaurants with a special menu tailored to young diners. While frozen pizza and microwavable macaroni and cheese may be cost-effective, parents know the difference. You may wish to consider making your macaroni and other kid’s menu items in-house to show parents that their kids’ meals are just as important as theirs.

Food safety certification trained managers at many outlets choose to get incredibly creative when serving kids. What is one of the best items you have ever seen on a kid’s menu?

Proven ServSafe Guide For Better Shellfish Storage

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The ocean waters are getting colder, which ushers in the prime season for live mussels from Penn Cove, Washington, North Atlantic clams, or fresh Virginia oysters. The import of live and fresh shellfish can raise ServSafe MN questions, such as how to keep shellfish alive during the storage of these seasonal catches.

Proven ServSafe Guide For Better Shellfish Storage
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Fresh Shellfish Storage Tips For ServSafe Managers

In the case of clams and mussels, the best time to cook them is when they are still alive. We recommend that they be cooked, processed, or sold within a day or two of their arrival. This will ensure incredible quality and freshness as well as reduce foodborne illness.

Upon receiving your fresh shellfish and before storage, we first recommend that ServSafe managers inspect them. If they have a pungent odor or you see several open shells, your shipment inevitably has dead clams, mussels, or oysters. The second thing we recommend is that you rinse shellfish under cold, running water. As you do this, be aware that live shellfish will drown if kept under unmoving water.

Once you have rinsed them, ignore your instincts to clean your shellfish, especially mussels. Many times, you will see plant life attached to mussels. This plant life can be attached to the membrane, which holds the shell shut. Removing it will damage and kill your mussels. We suggest that you wait to clean shellfish until just before processing.

ServSafe managers must train staff to keep live shellfish in refrigerated storage under 40oF. They should be stored in a perforated pan and covered with ice. Ensure you place your perforated pan in a deep enough container to accommodate ice melt. Remember that live shellfish will die if submerged.

You should also periodically check your shellfish. A good sign of a dead clam is an open clam while all the other clams are shut firmly. Remove dead shellfish as soon as possible to prevent contamination.

Allergy Concerns

With live shellfish, it is always recommended that you remember that many people can have severe allergic reactions to the slightest contact. To prevent cross-contamination with non-seafood items, ServSafe Managers should store your shellfish as far away as possible from other foods, and never above or below other raw meats. A good suggestion would be to store shellfish on a bottom shelf under packaged foods.

ServSafe Tips for Serving Raw Fruits and Vegetables

Special ServSafe Tips For Serving Raw Fruits And Vegetables

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On November 17, the CDC announced a new multistate outbreak of Salmonella illnesses that has been linked to cantaloupes. Those who have studied ServSafe in MN know that incredible care must be taken with meats, dairy, and eggs in order to prevent food-borne illness, but potential issues with raw fruits and vegetables are frequently overlooked.

Special ServSafe Tips For Serving Raw Fruits And Vegetables
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ServSafe Tips for Preventing Food-Borne Illness from Raw Fruits and Vegetables

The first step in preventing the spread of foodborne illness is to wash raw produce. It may be easy to cut fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and oranges that appear to be ready for preparation, but just because something looks clean and ready to eat does not necessarily mean that it is. Invisible remnants of soil, fertilizer, or other contaminants may still exist on the surface.

There are certain fruits, such as melons and tree fruits, in which the rind is not eaten. Those should still be washed or peeled before serving. There have been cases where food-borne illness has spread from bacteria on the rinds of melons or citrus fruits. Bacteria can be spread by a lemon sliced and used as a garnish in a glass of water or from a slice of cantaloupe in which the knife used to slice it has picked up contaminates from an unwashed peel.

Common Raw Fruits and Vegetables that Cause Food-Borne Illness

While any raw fruit or vegetable can cause food-borne illness, and steps learned in ServSafe MN should be used to prevent tainted food from reaching customers, a few specific items should be given extra care.

  • Sprouts
  • Melons
  • Leafy greens
  • Root vegetables

Sprouts have become such a hazard for food-borne illnesses that many restaurants and stores have stopped selling them. Before serving uncooked sprouts, particular attention should be taken to ensure they have been thoroughly cleaned.

Melons, especially cantaloupe, have been a notorious hazard in recent years. The rugged rind of the cantaloupe can shelter bacteria from a quick wash.

Leafy greens and root vegetables grow in or near the soil. This means having more contact with dirt, natural and chemical fertilizers, and other contaminants. These items should be thoroughly washed, and root vegetables to be served raw, such as carrots, should be washed before peeling to prevent bacteria from contaminating preparation utensils.

Food safety training for holiday carving stations

Spotlight On Food Safety Training For Live Holiday Carving Stations

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Christmas is upon us, so holiday parties keep catering companies and many restaurants busy with special events. Live chef-manned carving stations are in high demand at these holiday gatherings. However, with those stations come special food safety training procedures that are not typically covered in day-to-day training. Let’s look at how to put on a good show for guests at the carving station while prioritizing food safety training.

Spotlight On Food Safety Training For Live Holiday Carving Stations
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Food Safety Training for Buffet Carving Stations

Temperature control and containing the mess that comes with carving stations are the two most significant food safety training issues. However, there are easy solutions to keeping food hot and safe for guests.

If you plan on doing these types of events often, you may wish to invest in a heat lamp that will keep food hot. Many styles of heat lamps and specialty cutting boards with heat lamps are attached. If you choose not to use a heat lamp, remember food needs to be kept out of the danger zone. Be sure to review time and temperature control rules.

Unless you plan on overcooking your roasts, hams, prime rib, or turkey breast to the point they are too dry for human consumption, there will be juices, fats, and other parts of cooked meat that can cause a mess at these stations. When setting up your carving station, you’ll want to ensure that your boards have some drainage or way to capture liquids during service. The last thing you’ll want guests to see is pools of fat and meat juice covering buffet tables. These can spread to other items and create a huge mess. While there are boards out there with built-in cavities to contain runoff. Many catering companies utilize a sheet pan or other receptacle underneath cutting boards to contain waste.

Make sure you clean and sanitize boards regularly, ideally when swapping one roast for another, removing soiled boards, and replacing them with clean ones when necessary.

Do you have food safety training procedures for live-station service?