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

​COVID-19 and food safety

3/30/2020

0 Comments

 
COVID-19
As consumers take increased precautions to protect their safety during the coronavirus pandemic, they can take some solace that restaurants have to follow a detailed health and food safety protocol as a regular part of doing business – and that the transmission method of COVID-19 doesn’t change the efficacy of this protocol. Benjamin Chapman, a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University, told the Huffington Post that because coronavirus infection occurs primarily through the respiratory system, the chance of getting COVID-19 from food is extremely low. “The respiratory virus risk in restaurants is really more about being in the same location as a lot of people, some of whom can be depositing the virus on surfaces like tables, doors, menus, and managing that with a hand washing and alcohol-based sanitizer regime is an effective step to reduce risks of both COVID-19 and Influenza.” Restricting restaurant sales to curbside takeout and delivery reduces those respiratory risks even further.
0 Comments

​Understand weak points in food safety chain

3/30/2020

0 Comments

 
inspection
Amid the spread of COVID-19, there have been indirect impacts to food suppliers. Specifically, the FDA is temporarily suspending routine surveillance inspections of food manufacturers and handlers. According to a report in The Counter, “while FDA inspections may make up a relatively small component of the broader food safety ecosystem, the agency’s decision represents a fresh blow to an interconnected system of food safety checks that is already under immense pressure. A safe food supply depends on well-trained workers, internal and third-party audits, and domestic inspections.” When one area of the food supply chain is weakened, foodservice businesses need to be able to understand where gaps exist and take steps to fill them where possible.
0 Comments

​Stay alert to food safety

3/23/2020

0 Comments

 
temperature
If you have invested in systems and sensors to monitor aspects of your restaurant’s food safety protocol, don’t let them give you a false sense of security. The technology is only helpful if it is used to support careful food safety practices already in use. As ComplianceMate advises, make sure you follow up on any inconsistent temperature readings. If your cold-holding equipment has a built-in display that conflicts with the readings from your new temperature sensors, for example, test the temperature with a third sensor to confirm the result. If you automatically trust the built-in reading, you may get an inaccurate result as the in-unit thermostats often fail before the equipment does – and placing trust in the sensors can cause you to overlook potential problems with the new equipment. #foodsafety
0 Comments

​Are you coronavirus ready?

3/23/2020

0 Comments

 
Coronavirus
As the coronavirus has spread and restaurants have had to transition to a takeout-only model, what are restaurants to do to protect themselves and the customers they serve – and to somehow keep business coming in? Despite the many tech advances that have swept the industry, restaurants – until very recently – have been social places where people are on the front lines. A recent Restaurant Business report, which includes advice from a law firm specializing in employment issues, advises clear communication with employees in several areas: share your plan with them (and make sure it covers employee concerns such as your sick leave policy and your plan of operation during school closures) and provide training to ensure everyone knows what procedures to follow if they develop symptoms of COVID-19 or are diagnosed with it. Day to day, increase your efforts to sanitize door handles and kitchen and bathroom surfaces more often. Some operators are placing hand sanitizer at their building entrances, as well as outside the restroom and at stations in the back of the house. And while delivery was once considered a nice-to-have service, it’s now critical. Even if you don’t currently offer mobile ordering tech, now is the time to adjust your menu and offer a simple takeout menu that can be picked up outside of your establishment or dropped off outside a customer’s door for contactless delivery. Right now food delivery is considered a public service for people who are elderly, vulnerable and isolated, so promote on social media and to neighborhood news groups that you are open and ready to help, and provide your menu and contact information. Finally, encourage people to pick up the phone and call you – it’s old-fashioned but people are missing the social connections that restaurants have long been able to provide. You can provide a valuable way for people maintain those community ties as the industry pulls through this time of uncertainty.
0 Comments

Food safety lessons that last

3/23/2020

0 Comments

 
food safety
After you deliver food safety training to your staff, how much time passes before they put the lessons to use? Ecolab’s Bob Sherwood says his company has found that humans will forget 75 percent of the new information they acquire unless they use it within the first week of learning it. He suggests using a 70-20-10 rule for helping training lessons stick: 10 percent of the learning should be reserved for more formal classroom settings, 20 percent for conversations and other social interactions, and 70 percent for the application of lessons on the job. Do you have training mechanisms in place – whether through tech tools or in-person lessons – that ensure your staff apply new knowledge soon after they learn it?
0 Comments

Don’t let reusable towels spread pathogens

3/16/2020

0 Comments

 
towels
Are dangerous bacteria lurking in your kitchen towels? Prevent the spread of germs by sanitizing and storing towels correctly between uses. The most recent USDA Food Code advises towels to be held between uses in a chemical sanitizer solution in the specified concentration. Ensure the towels and solution are not soiled and don’t contain any food debris. Used towels should be laundered daily in a mechanical washer, a sink used only for washing cloths or a food preparation sink that has been cleaned and sanitized. Refer to the food code for a full list of procedures to keep reusable towels free from contaminants.
0 Comments

​Budget to avoid this food safety risk

3/16/2020

0 Comments

 
budget
Operators are well aware that issues such as kitchen pests and improper handwashing can lead to food safety problems in restaurants. But what about having a lack of available financial credit? A report from the software company Checkit mentions this as a major food safety problem in small restaurants. It cites an example of a restaurant that received an unexpectedly large gas bill totaling approximately $40,000, then struggled to make the payment, causing a succession of kitchen infrastructure problems that led to serious food safety hazards. Though it may not be every day that a restaurant receives a bill for tens of thousands of dollars, it happens, particularly when a business hasn’t budgeted for regular maintenance on a property. If you face a large expense, don’t have ready access to credit and must then direct resources away from critical business processes in order to pay bills, food safety is sure to be at risk. What sort of emergency budget preparations have you made to protect your business from surprise expenses?
0 Comments

​Compostable packaging that eliminates the food-safety guesswork

3/9/2020

0 Comments

 
packaging
Compostable packaging for take-out food is on the rise – but what about the packaging that comes into your restaurant from suppliers? In the coming months, packaging technology companies will be generating more compostable alternatives to the plastic film and pouches that are used to package meat, along with other proteins and prepared foods. Fast Company reports that one startup called Primitives is fine-tuning smart compostable packaging that can respond to its environment and detect safety problems. It could mean that in the not-too-distant future, operators won’t have to look to “sell by” or “use by” dates on packaging but can instead note that if a food’s packaging or a label on the packaging has changed color, it may have been tampered with or reached a temperature that has made the food unsafe to consume.
0 Comments

​Protect your brand in a health crisis

3/9/2020

0 Comments

 
restaurant staff
While at the time of this writing fewer than 20 cases of the coronavirus had been confirmed in the U.S., the illness had still created a ripple effect: Across the country, many Chinese restaurants have taken a hit due to the panic associated with the illness. Even if you don’t operate a Chinese restaurant, you can likely appreciate the challenge of trying to manage a sudden health crisis that threatens your brand – or even your entire restaurant category. The widespread nature of supply chains, along with the increased risk of viruses and weather-related crop damage, mean your restaurant could face a brand crisis at any time. It’s critical to have a contingency plan for responding to such events so you don’t have to create a plan mid-crisis. In a report from the Vending Times, Steritech’s Paula Herald suggests brands should take such steps as securing food supplies and distribution agreements, developing a food security plan to protect their operation from theft in the case of shortages, reviewing and refining their sick-leave policies, developing a plan to manage widespread absenteeism including limits on public transport, cross-training staff so workers can easily step in for others who are out, and keeping (and discussing with employees) up-to-date-communication plans and staff contact lists so they’re not struggling to get in touch with their team during a health crisis. Are you confident in your current crisis response plan – and in your team’s ability to carry it out?
0 Comments

​Using the Internet of Things to track unseen food safety risks

3/9/2020

0 Comments

 
fly
The universe of Internet of Things devices used to monitor restaurant processes and alert operators to potential problems continues to grow – and even pest activity can be tracked by a network of sensors. The pest control company Rentokil says the top pests posing problems for restaurants and commercial kitchens are rodents, cockroaches, flies and stored-product pests that infest and contaminate food. Since some of these pests can make themselves scarce when your team isn’t around, using technology to track their activity can give you a clearer picture of the types of pests you’re dealing with, how your pest activity varies throughout the year and what emerging risks your business might face if you don’t take preventive action. That data then helps automate your reports related to pests, along with the steps you must take to stay in compliance as a foodservice organization.
0 Comments
<<Previous

    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