The risk of contamination is something to be taken incredibly seriously in food and beverage industries, and especially so in the current pandemic.
The focus on keeping hygiene levels of your employees and equipment must be kept to the highest standards.
The advice in this article discusses how to decrease the risk of contamination in ingestible products to its lowest potential.
Employee Hygiene
Food handlers are put into direct contact with the products, and therefore need to be extremely aware of their practices and rigorously adhere to them.
Make sure you involve every employee in the correct training procedures to put across the importance and correct information in regard to this.
To prevent food poisoning and contamination, make sure they uphold good personal hygiene, for example, keeping personal items (mobile phones, keys, wallets) away from the food, wearing protective clothing, covering any wounds like papercuts or scabs, tying back hair, keeping nails short and free from nail polish (as it may chip and fall into the food), remove jewelry, and never smoke or chew gum in the same area where food is handled.
Implement Regular Sanitization Practices
It should go without saying to enforce hand washing before preparing the food, after coughing or sneezing, and after touching anything that hasn’t been properly sanitized.
Make sure hands are not still wet when coming back to handle food and they have been dried thoroughly with paper towels or under a hand drying machine.
Make sure employees know how to maintain proper hygiene when it comes to food and why these rules are implemented. Create stations to provide adequate sanitation materials and opportunities for your employees.
Equipment and Workplace Hygiene
If you run a business that prepares or handles food, you are responsible for making sure your facilities are hygienic sites to prevent any contamination.
How spaces are cleaned and how food is stored are definite factors in whether food can come into contact with substances it shouldn’t.
You should examine your space and identify any hazards or potential risks when it comes to moving or storing the food.
Make sure all of your machinery is properly cleaned and does not have any defects, minor or major. Equipment such as an industrial vacuum for engineering are good pieces to invest in for quality cleaning.
Checks like these go a long way to ensure proper standards of hygiene in your industry.
Food-borne diseases are serious risks to gamble on, so check your food is being stored at the correct temperature, in the correct space, and organized properly (as certain foods can contaminate each other if stored too close together).
Pests and waste management are also factors that must be rigorously checked and dealt with immediately should any issues arise.
Disease and contamination are easily preventable if industries adopt the correct frame of mind and social responsibility appropriate to their role. As a business, your concern is the customer and their safety.
Prioritizing these measures will prevent customers becoming sick and ensure your business has a glowing reputation.
