Human error generates great expense in the restaurant industry. A recent report from FoodDocs indicates that on average, human error costs the service industry around $30 per order. One widespread mistake is incorrect order taking, which can trigger anything from a negative review to a severe allergy. It’s also preventable if you reinforce some manual and tech-driven checks. Advise staff to confirm verbal orders when they are placed (and also when they are served). If you’re using a tech-based system to take orders, make sure the final screen lists the items clearly, along with any substitutions.

Food storage areas are a key source of contamination. If you’re working in a small space – and many of us are these days as restaurant footprints shrink – ensure you’re taking steps to prevent cross-contamination of foods with chemicals or with incompatible foods. That includes not storing any food items alongside cleaning supplies, keeping food in airtight containers, allowing air to flow around the items you’re storing, rotating stock and removing waste promptly. In your cooler, keep raw meat, poultry and seafood on the lowest shelves to prevent those items from dripping onto other foods.

Ongoing supply chain problems mean that replacing a piece of equipment or a needed part could easily take months. In the interest of both food safety and the safety of your employees, take stock of what you need to do to keep your key equipment running as it should. A study from NSF International found that 27 percent of quick-service operations switch off machinery because of a lack of expertise or time to get to the root of a problem, and 10 percent of quick-service managers admitted to skipping automatic cleaning cycles and ignoring error messages on equipment. Now is an important time to get to know how to best maintain your equipment and ensure your employees feel safe in promptly reporting when something isn’t working properly.

​Warmer temperatures outdoors mean your equipment will be working harder to keep foods at the proper temperatures. Make sure your staff takes extra care with Time/Temperature Control for Safety (TCS) foods, which are most vulnerable to pathogens. That includes meat, eggs, seafood, dairy, cooked vegetables, protein-rich plants, rice/pasta/potato dishes, raw sprouts, cut leafy greens, sliced melon and tomatoes, and cut garlic in oil. Keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot by maintaining cold food at a temperature of 41°F or below and hot food at 135°F or above.

Campylobacter and salmonella are the top causes of foodborne illness in the U.S., and recent reports of high amounts of poultry contaminated with these pathogens mean restaurant operators should be especially vigilant about safe poultry preparation. Always place raw poultry on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator to prevent it from dripping on other items. Poultry should be cooked to an internal temperature of 165°F. As barbecue season approaches, try to ensure the poultry you serve is eaten promptly to keep it out of the temperature danger zone (between 40 and 140°F) and refrigerate it after two hours – one hour if it is sitting outside in warm temperatures.

Ongoing supply chain and labor challenges mean that many restaurants are trying to accomplish more tasks with fewer resources, but your food safety is one area where you can’t cut corners. As you try to operate in the leanest way possible, food safety tech can help you offload processes that are necessary and also require more labor hours when done manually. Looking across your operation, are there any remaining paper-and-pen processes that could be converted to digital? Are you receiving text or email alerts about the need to complete tasks on time? Can you log photos or other evidence of compliance as needed? Talk to Team Four if you need help in assessing where and how digital processes may help enhance your food safety. Difficult as the current environment is for restaurant operators, it could also be an ideal time to press the reset button on your food safety program – and to reinforce your commitment to it as you onboard new staff.

If you’re like most foodservice operators right now, you’re actively trying to recruit staff – and perhaps in even greater numbers than you had to let go at the start of the pandemic. This means you’re likely in the midst of trying to ensure a new, less experienced roster of staff is up to speed about your safety protocols and the day-to-day work of your restaurant. How well you handle the onboarding process plays an important role in an employee’s experience with you: According to research from Modern Restaurant Management, management and communication are two of the factors that impact employee satisfaction the most. To ensure you’re covering the range of methods in which people learn, combine written, digital and on-the-job training tools to communicate policies clearly. For example, you might offer a handbook at the outset that includes your Covid safety protocols, an overview of how your restaurant operates, your restaurant’s values and ethos, guidelines for greeting and interacting with customers, sick leave policies, staff roles and responsibilities, and a review of your technology tools. Complement this with follow-up opportunities for Q&A, job shadowing with an experienced staff member, and digital reviews of training concepts on an ongoing basis. Expect mistakes and create an environment that makes it easy for new staff to admit to them and make adjustments.

​We’ve all got pandemic fatigue – and it’s especially evident in restaurants, where people are gathering again with friends, mask-free, over their favorite food and drink. But restaurants are also at an important inflection point when it comes safety, having to decide how many lockdown-inspired protocols should remain – and perhaps putting off safety improvements that aren’t immediately necessary. Many of those improvements have to do with ventilation – including system inspections and upgrades, new HVAC filters, and the use of small air filtration units throughout a restaurant that can help protect indoor air quality. A recent report in The Atlantic advises operators to take this time to make sure they are as ready as they can be to manage future variants or separate virus outbreaks (and to have a clear-eyed view about spending money on more-visible but less-effective protocols that fall into the realm of pandemic theater). What valuable safety lessons from the pandemic could you try to ensure don’t get put on the back burner as concern about the pandemic recedes?