FOODSERVICE UPDATES
  • Foodservice Updates
  • Trends
    • Commodities
  • Digital Media
  • Technology
  • Safety
  • Management Tips
  • Free Newsletter
  • Recipes
    • Mains >
      • Handhelds
      • Pasta & Rice
    • Soups & Sauces
    • Salads
    • Appetizers
    • Desserts & Snacks
    • Sides
  • Foodservice CEO

​Seal the cracks in your winter safety plan

1/25/2021

0 Comments

 
safety
While pandemic fatigue set in long ago – and may have resulted in some lax health and safety behaviors on your staff by this point – the next few months will require extra vigilance. At the time of this writing, the more-contagious U.K. variant of the coronavirus had begun to spread to other countries including the U.S. The longer the coronavirus is around and causing more infections, the more opportunities there will be for new mutations of the virus to occur. Dr. Stuart Ray, an expert in the virus that causes COVID-19 and vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins Medicine, said human behaviors are especially important to containing the virus as new strains emerge. “We need to re-emphasize basic public health measures, including masking, physical distancing, good ventilation indoors, and limiting gatherings of people in close proximity with poor ventilation,” he said. “We give the virus an advantage to evolve when we congregate in more confined spaces.” Beyond those measures, reemphasize the importance of no-contact food deliveries and pickups. Further, as the vaccine becomes more widely available to essential workers including foodservice staff, have an ongoing dialogue with your team about vaccination – and the science backing its safety. While you may not want to mandate vaccination, you can encourage staff to get the vaccine by offering to cover associated costs, as Chipotle’s Brian Niccol announced the brand will be doing. 
0 Comments

​Everything including the kitchen sink

1/25/2021

0 Comments

 
sink
Cooler temperatures help viruses survive and spread. Make sure your kitchen doesn’t harbor contaminants that could cause foodborne illness this winter. While cleaning and sanitizing your countertops and door handles may be second nature in your kitchen as part of your COVID-19 safety practices, don’t neglect regular cleaning of the area in and around your sinks. It’s easy for food particles and bacteria to lurk on sink handles and nearby rags, or to be splashed up onto sink rims and surrounding surfaces. 
0 Comments

​Serve to-go alcohol safely

1/25/2021

0 Comments

 
alcohol to go
The loosening of regulations around the sale of to-go alcohol may be among the pandemic-era changes that will last long after COVID-19 is behind us. The trend started well before the pandemic: According to results of the National Restaurant Association’s 2019 Restaurant Delivery Survey, 59 percent of adults said they would order alcoholic drinks with their food delivery order from a restaurant if it were allowed. Now, these higher-margin sales could be an important lifeline for restaurants in addition to a way to meet consumer demand. Just make sure you’re staying up to date on changes to your state’s laws and the liability and reputational risk your business faces from these sales. The National Restaurant Association’s ServSafe team developed a State Alcohol Delivery Laws/Orders/Regulations tracker to help restaurants keep track of state-by-state changes that operators need to be aware of.  https://bit.ly/2MoW0en
0 Comments

​Are you going far enough with your contactless experience?

1/18/2021

0 Comments

 
contactless
Contactless ordering and payment have been on the rise since the beginning of the pandemic – and to be sure, they are safeguards guests appreciate. But there are many other touchpoints in your facility that concern consumers right now. Trace the path of a typical guest in your restaurant – are there touchpoints you can remove or other safeguards you can apply to make them more sanitary? Do guests have to touch parts of your trash bins – both those in restrooms and others placed in or around your dining rooms – to discard waste? Do they have to hand over a table marker to claim their order? When they visit a restroom, do they have to use an air dryer that can spread contaminants through the space? If possible, place contactless paper towel dispensers in restrooms and near bins or compactors. Help limit the need to touch dispensers and door handles throughout your facility – or make it possible for people to sanitize their hands afterwards.
0 Comments

​New guidance to protect your indoor air

1/18/2021

0 Comments

 
HVAC
As helpful as cleaning and sanitizing surfaces in your restaurant can be, protecting your guests from COVID-19 is largely about safeguarding the air they breathe – by maintaining physical distance between your staff and guests and between guests themselves, and taking steps to purify the air flowing through your facility. In December, the National Restaurant Association updated its pandemic operating guidance to include recommendations for HVAC maintenance, the use of portable air purifiers, and the best way to protect the safety of staff changing air filters, among other recommendations. Review the new guidance here (https://bit.ly/38CbrqU).
0 Comments

​Make sure your outdoor dining area protects safety

1/11/2021

0 Comments

 
outdoor dining
As operators weather what is likely going to be a difficult winter, many of those fortunate enough to have outdoor spaces have taken steps to outfit them with heated pods, screens and other partitions aimed at containing the spread of the virus while also allowing the safe (and more comfortable) serving of guests as the temperature drops. But according to medical experts, these spaces can be as risky as indoor settings if operators don’t take sufficient precautions. To minimize the spread of infection in the next couple of months, be sure to air out individual dining pods between guests, or in case you have a partially enclosed space for dining outdoors, ensure that air is able to circulate throughout it. Outdoor space heaters and fireplaces can help beat the chill without posing additional safety risks, and you can also encourage guests to bring their own blankets to keep warm during their meal.
0 Comments

​Study the contents of your packaging

1/11/2021

0 Comments

 
packaging
As we have come to rely on takeout restaurant food over dine-in meals in recent months, the safety of food packaging has been put under a magnifying glass. Beyond the packaging’s ability to keep food at the proper temperature and protect it from tampering, it must also be made from materials that don’t have an adverse impact on the safety of the food it carries. Recently, several states including Washington, Maine and New York have introduced bans on packaging containing PFAS chemicals, which are commonly found in food packaging and are potentially carcinogenic. As packaging improves to help operators manage increases in off-premise dining, consider the safety of its ingredients – along with its ability to keep a meal warm and secure en route to a customer.
0 Comments

​Make safety a selling point

1/4/2021

0 Comments

 
safety
As we wait for the COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed to more people across the country, we must still manage what could be an especially challenging winter for restaurants. Ongoing cases of COVID-19, on top of normal seasonal concerns like the flu, will make restaurant health and safety practices take on extra importance right now. Make your commitment to safety clear on everything from your front door to your website. Persist with mask wearing indoors and when delivering food (whether through in-house staff or a vendor), enforce social distancing in your dining areas and kitchen, and regularly ensure your facility is well ventilated, air is purified and high-touch surfaces are cleaned. It will help you earn trust from customers, and at a minimum, could help you minimize winter-illness absences on your team.
0 Comments

​How safe is the food on its way to you?

1/4/2021

0 Comments

 
delivery
Increasingly, consumers care about the precautions businesses are taking to protect the safety of their food en route to the businesses selling it to them. The software and engineering firm Emerson recently surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers about food safety practices – and what they expect to see from suppliers. More than 50 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to shop at stores that aren’t using (or requiring suppliers to use) the latest technology to keep food safe. Half of respondents said they are now more concerned about the safety of their food than they were before the pandemic. Nearly 60 percent said the pandemic has made them want to support local businesses. When you promote food safety to guests, look beyond your operation. Trace the path of your menu items and try to shorten that path where possible. Share the tech products and practices that help keep their food fresh and safe between its source and their dinner table.
0 Comments

    subscribe to our newsletter

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Air Circulation
    Alerts
    Allergy
    Angry Customers
    Antibiotics
    Apple
    Appliance
    Assessment
    Automation
    Back Of The House
    Bacteria
    Behavior
    Bending
    Budget
    Checklist
    Chemicals
    Chicken
    Cleaning
    Climate-change
    Communication
    Contactless
    Contanmination
    Cooking Times
    Cooling
    Coronavirus
    COVID
    Cross-contact
    Crosscontamination
    Cross Contamination
    Cutting-board
    Delivery
    Digital
    Disaster
    Disinfecting
    Distributor
    Dried
    Ecoli
    E-coli
    Eggs
    Emergency
    Employee
    Equipment
    Error
    Exterior
    Fall
    Fish
    Flood
    Flooding
    Foodbourne
    Foodkeeper
    Foodsafety
    Food Safety
    Foodsafety8e1fcbeb2b
    Foodsupply
    Food-supply
    Freeze
    Freezer
    Fruit
    Garbage
    Gloves
    Grabngo
    Greens
    Grill
    Growing
    Guidelins
    Handwashing
    Health
    Healthcode
    Health Code
    Heat
    Hepatitis
    Holiday
    Hours
    Hvac
    Ice
    Icecream
    Incentives
    Ingredients
    Inspection
    Inspections
    Investigation
    Job Satisfaction
    Kitchen
    Knifes
    Labels
    Labor
    Legal
    Lifting
    Maintenance
    Marketing
    Mask
    Mental-health
    Menu
    Mercury
    Norovirus
    Orders
    Outdoordining
    Over-extension
    Packaging
    Pathogens
    Personalbelongings
    Pests
    Phone
    Planning
    Plantbased
    Plant-based
    Policy
    Portions
    Positivereinforcement
    Poultry
    Power
    Ppe
    Produce
    Recycle
    Refrigerator
    Restroom
    Reusable
    Rice
    Risk
    Roasting
    Robot
    Safety
    Safetyviolations
    Safety-violations
    Samonella
    Sanitize
    Scheduling
    Score
    Seniors
    Service Fee
    Sesame
    Shield
    Slice
    Slip
    Socialdistancing
    Social-distancing
    Solar
    Spices
    Staff
    Standards
    Storage
    Storms
    Straws
    Stress
    Substitution
    Supplier
    Tabletop
    Takeout
    Take-out
    Takeoutfed487ce46
    Tamper-evident
    Technology
    Temperature
    Thanksgiving
    Thawing
    Towels
    Traceability
    Tracking
    Training
    Transparency
    Trip
    Twisting
    Uv
    Vaccine
    Vegetables
    Ventilation
    Virus
    Volunteers
    Washing
    Waste

Get our Free Newsletter
Team Four Foodservice
​Recipes
Corona Virus Resources
Value 4
Quarterly Outlook
​Palette Foodservice
​
Foodservice CEO
© 2021 Team Four Foodservice
  • Foodservice Updates
  • Trends
    • Commodities
  • Digital Media
  • Technology
  • Safety
  • Management Tips
  • Free Newsletter
  • Recipes
    • Mains >
      • Handhelds
      • Pasta & Rice
    • Soups & Sauces
    • Salads
    • Appetizers
    • Desserts & Snacks
    • Sides
  • Foodservice CEO