Staff hygiene is extremely important and it all starts with clean hands.
Clean hands start at the hand-washing station. Every hand-washing station starts with a sink designated for hand washing. Hands should never be washed in sinks used for food prep, dishwashing, utility services or anything else for that matter.
The next essential aspect of hand washing is soap. Having an easily accessible and easily operated soap dispenser at every hand-washing station is a great start. San Jamar offers two different lines of soap dispensers that will more than do the trick.
Once hands have been washed and rinsed, it’s important that they’re dried properly. A single-use paper towel dispenser should be at every hand-washing station. San Jamar also offers a wide variety of paper-towel dispensers including those with levers to dispense the towels, no-touch dispensers with sensors and folded towel dispensers.
After hands have been cleaned it’s important to try to keep them as clean as possible. This is where faucets can come into play during the hand-washing process. If at all possible, having a hands-free faucet at the hand-washing station is optimal. The most popular solution to hands-free faucets is a station with foot pedals. Both Fisher and T&S Brass offer some great hands-free faucets.
With these products you can get your designated hand-washing station up and running. It’s a vital element of any food-safe foodservice operation.
Managing temperature is a critical part of foodservice. If food is allowed to reach unsafe temperatures for too long, pathogens can grow in the food and cause a variety of problems.
After food is cooked, one of three things should happen. It should be held at a proper hot temperature to be served. It can be properly cooled and held at a cool temperature so it can be served at a later date. Or it can be served immediately. No matter what, the food is to be kept out of the temperature danger zone which is 41°F to 135°F.
If food is to be held at a hot temperature, it needs to be held at 135°F or higher. It should be checked every four hours to make sure it does not dip below the hot food threshold.
The necessary equipment for hot holding ranges from heated or insulated holding cabinets, heat tables or hot wells. Several Suppliers manufacture these products. The table at the end of this article indicates which Suppliers makes the pieces of equipment you may need.
To hold food at a cold temperature, it needs to be held under 41°F or lower. It should also be checked every four hours to make sure it doesn’t go over the cold food threshold. Once food reaches the cold threshold it can be held in either a walk-in or reach-in refrigerator, freezer, or a cold well.
There is one more wrinkle in cold-holding food. The process of cooling the food needs to be monitored closely. Food that is cooked to over 135°F and then cooled to below 41°F needs to follow a specific process. It needs to be cooled from 135°F+ to 70°F in two hours or less. Once it reaches 70°F it needs to be cooled to 41°F over the next four hours or less. One of the most efficient ways to cool food is by using a blast chiller.
It’s critical to monitor the temperature of food, whether it is hot or cold, between the time it has finished cooking and the time it’s being served.
This table illustrates which Suppliers manufacture what equipment.
Properly cooking food is one of the easiest ways to minimize pathogens and thus minimize the risk of foodborne illness.
No matter the cooking technique there’s one sure fire way to monitor food’s internal temperature. That’s with a probe thermometer. To properly use a probe thermometer, one must insert the probe into the thickest part of the food item and hold it for a solid 15 seconds. It’s also advised to always take two readings.
A couple of great sources for reliable thermometers include Cooper-Atkins and Taylor Precision. Both manufacturers offer a wide variety of digital and analog thermometers.
Cooper-Atkins’ HACCP Manager is a great tool for taking food temperatures, collecting data and monitoring an operation’s performance over a long period of time. You can read more about the Cooper-Atkins HAACP Manager by clicking here.
For those operations that utilize analog pocket thermometers, Cooper-Atkins also offers The Val-Cup, a simple, sure-fire tool to calibrate thermometers to ensure their accuracy.
Taylor offers a wide range of pocket thermometers. They even have color-coded thermometers so operators can use them for the appropriate food products.
Thermometers are extremely important tools in the foodservice operation. Using them diligently will ensure that food is done to it’s proper minimum internal temperature while minimizing the risk of foodborne illness.
Below is a table illustrating the minimum internal temperatures for common food items.
Hollowick has long been known as a way to add ambience to your table setting using it’s disposable liquid fuel cells. Hollowick has released the Gala fuel cell covers to make its classic design even better.
Gala fuel cells are available in both a polished chrome and white finish made from high quality steel. Gala covers fit Hollowick HD17, HD26, HD36 and HD50.
They’ll also fit on several Hollowick lamps.
The Gala fuel cell covers are a simple way to make a disposable product look elegant and stylish. If you’re looking for more information on Gala fuel cell covers, click here or visit Hollowick.com.
The Cambro Camshelving Basics series is a flexible system designed to fit in any space. It’s NSF approved and comes with a lifetime guarantee against corrosion and rust.
Depending on the size of the shelving unit, it boasts up to a 600 lbs. per shelf weight limit. The system is great for any operator, but especially for independent operators who need a moderate amount of foodservice-grade shelving at an affordable price.
Camshelving comes in a variety of sizes and can also be configured to fit into corners. Lastly, the shelves themselves can be easily removed for cleaning purposes. For more on Cambro Camshelving Basics, click here or visit Cambro.com.
Creating ambiance is crucial. Sterno Candle Lamp has created a rechargeable candle system that is space saving, cost efficient, versatile, and flameless. The new Lumina FX2 rechargeable candle set from Sterno CandleLamp is a system that can help any end user set the perfect ambiance.
The system comes with a remote for setting options including four flame colors, bright/dim light or flicker mode. Candles can also be preset to stay lit for 4-10 hours. After an initial one-time set up, each Lumina Fx2 can burn for up to 18 hours while only requiring four hours of charge.
Each charger rack holds up to 12 candles. The racks can be stacked three high on a single plug. Sterno recommends that the candles are used in lamps at least 4.5″ tall. If you’d like more information on the Lumina FX2 from Sterno CandleLamp, click here.
Wine on tap is an increasingly popular trend. Perlick is leading the way with its WINEcertified kit and direct dispensers to make sure that every glass of wine that gets poured from a tap tastes the way it should.
Three things that ruin any bottle of wine are inconsistent temperature, exposure to light and oxidation. Perlick has created WINEcertified, which is its guarantee that all Perlick products and their components are manufactured to properly store and dispense wine, reducing the wine’s exposure to any of these threats.
The Perlick WINEcertified Dispensing Kit includes five wine-specific features that are common among Perlick’s wine dispensing products. It features a faucet, shank, union and keg coupler all made of Stainless Steel. The kit also includes flavor-lock tubing that specifically protects against allowing oxygen to come into contact with the wine.
The kit comes with four options for dispensing heads. The 2-faucet Draft Arm, 5-faucet Tee Tower, 1-faucet Lucky and 3-faucet Panther.
To find out more about Perlick’s direct draw wine dispensers, wine storage and WINEcertified dispensing kit, to learn more click here to visit their website.
The newest items added to the line of mini serving vessels from American Metalcraft are great. The new additions, pictured above, include a mini aluminum pie pan, tiny milk cans and mini galvanized pails.
These three new items are an extension of shrinking and re-purposing items classically found in kitchens as single-serve vessels.
They give an added level of appeal to the service of side dishes in restaurants or bringing up the presentation and pomp to single-serve desserts at catered events.
Every food operation’s first priority should be to produce safe food. Having a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) can help you in monitoring your number one priority.
Cooper-Atkins has recently released its HACCP Manager in order to make it easier for food service professionals to implement and maintain their HACCP plans. The HACCP Manager records, stores and analyzes product temperature data and checklists to ensure HACCP compliance. It allows users to build a custom HACCP plan to fit their operation.
The HACCP Manager helps by simplifying the HACCP process, saving on the costs of paper and ink, reducing training time and ensuring regulatory compliance.
If you’d like to learn more about the Cooper-Atkins HACCP Manager, click here
The new San Jamar ModPans are a great alternative to stainless steel food pans and plastic deli rounds for food preparation and storage. Prep, measure, store, seal, stack, even microwave; the design combines the durability of a stainless steel food pan and the convenience of a deli tray.
The San Jamar ModPans fit the same as stainless pans in prep stations, but they’re more durable. They won’t dent or bend and they come with lids. The lids eliminate the need for plastic wrap and keep food safer longer. Another bonus is the see-through plastic makes it much easier to store, organize and locate products in storage.
ModPans are NSF-certified, BPA-free, dishwasher safe and microwave safe. For more information on SanJamar ModPans, visit their website here.
Managing temperature is a critical part of foodservice. If food is allowed to reach unsafe temperatures for too long, pathogens can grow in the food and cause a variety of problems.
