Safe Food Handling Could Save Your Business

Whether at the Chez Michael restaurant, the Heron Rock Bistro or the 4 Mile Restaurant & Pub or for that matter, any restaurant at all in Melbourne, food safety is vitally important. No matter how fantastic your business may be, a simply food handling mistake by your staff could be a serious, even insurmountable setback to your business.

The restaurant business is all about repeat customers and public perception of your establishment. Your reputation is everything. If you have even one lawsuit concerning food handling or food preparation mistakes in your kitchen, it can spell disaster- not just for legal defense fees, either. Your reputation could be seriously harmed, even ruined.

You have to take some basic steps to ensure food safety as well as making sure that all of your kitchen staff are well aware of the risks of food poisoning and other food borne illnesses. Additionally, you must be prepared for surprise health inspections, these can happen at any time. An employee who witnesses improper food handling can also be disastrous for your restaurant, since they may decide to tell others - especially should they lose their job.

And there is more to this than simply properly storing food and disposing of waste.

Food preparation areas must be kept clean at all times. While this sounds easy enough, it is very easy to do this wrong. You must use different cutting boards for meat, seafood and vegetables, for instance. Some restaurants use stainless steel surfaces for food preparation - this can dull knives and according to some, impart a hint of metallic flavor to meats. This is harmless, but hardly good for your reputation. Plastic cutting boards are better as they are easy to clean and inherently more sanitary than are wooden cutting boards. After use, each cutting board must be washed thoroughly. For deep cleaning, chlorine bleach can be employed, but make sure to rinse well if bleach is used in cleaning these surfaces.

Utensils need to be washed as well after each meal preparation in which they are used.

To ensure that all harmful bacteria have been killed, meats have to be cooked to a minimum internal temperature - 69 degrees for pork and red meats, 74 degrees for seafood. Even if a customer orders a rare steak, it must be cooked to 69 degrees for at least 15 seconds to reduce the risk of food poisoning. If you have any meats which are not definitely fresh, then you must make sure to prepare them very well done.

The preparation of raw foods such as sushi call for even greater care. These foods require you to keep your kitchen perfectly clean and a grade-A preparation staff are essential here, as is being sure that your supplier of seafood is very clean. When preparing sushi, disposable gloves and hair coverings must be worn and the preparation area so clean that one could literally eat that sushi off of the floor. Sushi must be discarded if it is not absolutely certain that it is fresh.

It’s shocking how many kitchen workers do not constantly wash their hands with soap and water between preparing meals, even if they’ve touched raw meat. Kitchen workers need to wash their hands between every meal preparation, and really it’s a good idea to do quick hand washings between different handlings (such as going from meat to vegetables) during a meal preparation.

By enforcing a strict kitchen sanitation and food handling program, you will be protecting the interests of your customers as well as those of your restaurant.

The Lastest posts in Small Business

Graphic Design Logos: An Important Small Business Marketing Tool
A logo design is a graphic symbol that is used to represent a company, and somet...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/business/marketing/graphic-design-logos-an-important-small-business-marketing-tool-1446/

Make Sure Your Billers Watch Your AR - Not the Clock
The choice to outsource your medical billing can yield substantially better resu...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/business/make-sure-your-billers-watch-your-ar-not-the-clock-1416/

Review Of Renegade Network Marketer By Ann Sieg
In my Renegade Network Marketer review, discover what is inside Ann Sieg's contr...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/business/sales/review-of-renegade-network-marketer-by-ann-sieg-1335/

4 Tips To Working At Home
With the cost of living rising on a daily basis all over the world, it is becomi...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/business/careers/4-tips-to-working-at-home-1260/

Secure Your Retirement With A Roth IRA
A Roth IRA (Individual Retirement Account) or the 401K plan that many large and ...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/finance/taxes/secure-your-retirement-with-a-roth-ira-1237/

How is this economy treating your small business?
You would have to be living in a cave not to be aware that we're in the worst fi...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/finance/credit/how-is-this-economy-treating-your-small-business-1224/

Work At Home Jobs Can Earn You A Decent Income
Work at home jobs allow you work conveniently in your home atmosphere without co...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/business/careers/work-at-home-jobs-can-earn-you-a-decent-income-1221/

Does Franchise Growth Indicate a Successful Franchise?
There are many elements to consider when choosing the right franchise opportunit...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/business/does-franchise-growth-indicate-a-successful-franchise-1213/

Medical Billing Success Requires Strong Denial Management
It has been accurately stated that you cannot manage what you do not measure. Th...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/business/small-business/medical-billing-success-requires-strong-denial-management-1207/

Planning to include charity in your business plan?
When times get tough, it's easy to ignore the possibility of starting a charitab...
http://www.bizarticlezone.com/business/entrepreneurs/planning-to-include-charity-in-your-business-plan-1204/