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Are you making these 6 food-safety mistakes?

Chris Boyles, VP of The Steritech Institute, reveals the industry's top 6 food-safety issues.

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October 7, 2019

By Chris Boyles, VP,  The Steritech Institute

Food safety can be affected by high employee turnover, gaps in training, and simply, a lack of understanding of its importance in protecting customers. With National Food Safety Month just coming to a close, now is a good time to communicate to your staff on some of the top food safety issues they should be focused on, and identify areas that may need retraining. 

In reviewing results from over 250,000 food safety assessments conducted in the past year, the top issues we see at Steritech include: 

1. Cleanliness of food-contact surfaces.
2. Condition of food-contact surfaces.
3. Cold holding.
4. Food handling of time/temperature control.
5. Date marking.
6. Sanitizer concentration 

It is important for your restaurant to acknowledge these problem areas and put the proper resources, procedures and training in place to tackle these issues. 

Cleanliness of food-contact surfaces 
The FDA Food Code calls the highest-risk issues priority issues, and the most commonly observed priority issue we see across all restaurants is inadequate cleaning of food-contact surfaces. The top culprits include the inside of ice machines, the nozzles of soda fountains, and cutting boards. Regular and thorough cleaning and proper sanizating is necessary to prevent bacteria from growing on these surfaces and spreading to customers through the food these surfaces contact.

Tackle these issues with procedures, training and monitoring. Make sure you have up-to-date standard operating procedures for cleaning and sanitizing each item. Assign the work to specific team members who have been trained for the tasks and finish with a check by the manager to verify.
Tip: For equipment that gets disassembled, cleaned and sanitized only once a day, lay the parts out to air-dry. Then, both the closing and opening managers can verify proper cleaning.

Condition of food contact surfaces
Food contact surfaces that are in poor condition can create both biological and physical hazards. In order to achieve cleanliness, food-contact surfaces have to be in good condition. Deep gashes and broken surfaces often cannot be cleaned and sanitized successfully. They become a source of cross-contamination and a breeding ground for harmful bacteria that can be transferred to food. Pieces of damaged utensils like broken pieces of spatulas and small springs from tongs can end up in food and injure your customers.
Tip: Have back-up utensils and cutting boards on hand and repair or replace any damaged items immediately. 

Cold holding
Inadequate cold holding is cited as a problem in 41 percent of Steritech's casual dining restaurant assessments. If a cold food requires refrigeration, it must be maintained at 41 ̊F or below to prevent bacteria growth. The most common cold holding violation in Steritech assessments is cut tomatoes. To prevent food safety issues, plan time into the process to pre-chill tomatoes before processing or between processing and placing them on the line.
Tip: Do not stack pans during the chilling process. Allowing air to flow across all the surfaces reduces the time required to chill the tomatoes. 

Update or add new procedures to ensure a smooth process flow. Make sure the team members assigned to this task understand the process and the reason it's important. Implement regular temperature checks which can be verified by the manager.

Food handling for time/temperature control
As restaurants experiment with more diverse and complex menus, the amount of in-house prep often increases. A common challenge is controlling the amount of time food sits out during prep. The longer it spends in the Temperature Danger Zone (41 ̊F - 135 ̊F), the greater chance there is for bacteria to grow.
Tip: Prep in small quantities to ensure food spends less time in the risky temperatures. Require a thermometer to be kept in  food on the prep table to keep this front-of-mind. 

Review your procedures to make sure they include limits on batch sizes, train the appropriate team members on any revisions and educate managers on the importance of enforcing these limits. Four hours is the maximum amount of time a food can spend in the Temperature Danger Zone. If an item will be prepped and returned to refrigeration, the four-hour limit includes the time it takes to prep as well as the time it takes to chill the prepared item back to 41 ̊F or below. 

Date marking
When opening or portioning bulk foods, it is critically important to date mark containers so all team members can clearly identify the expiration date. For most refrigerated ready-to-eat items, the maximum length is seven days, including the day it is dated. To minimize shrink, be sure your procedures stress FIFO (first in, first out) rotation.
Tip: Assign trained team members to do a daily check of this process, culling any expired foods and alerting the manager to any breakdowns in the process so they will not continue to happen. 

Sanitizer concentration
Whether in a triple sink or a bucket, be sure you are changing the sanitizer on a regular cycle, such as every four hours, or whenever it looks visibly soiled. Most violations in this area are because restaurants aren’t replacing sanitizer frequently enough. Also, be sure to follow the directions on your sanitizer solution for the right concentration if your sanitizer concentration is too low, it won't be effective and using it will give the restaurant a false sense of security.
Tip: Test strips are a simple check, but they work well only when used correctly. For most quat sanitizers, verify the temperature of the solution, control for the proper number of seconds the strip should be in the solution, and avoid touching foam on the surface or agitating the strip in the solution. It may be worth a look to ensure your procedures correspond to the sanitizer and test strips you use today. If there are updates, train the folks who perform this task and consider implementing a log so managers can verify how often it is done.