Whatever restaurant in Melbourne you happen to be the 4 Mile Restaurant & Pub, Chez Michael, or the Heron Rock Bistro, food safety is important. Even if you have the most successful restaurant in all of Melbourne, all it takes is one food handling mistake to seriously damage your business.
The restaurant business is built on two things - repeat clientele and a good public image of your establishment. Your reputation IS your business. Even one lawsuit stemming from improper food handling can be a catastrophe for your restaurant.
Not only do you need to take certain basic steps and make sure all of your kitchen employees always do in order to prevent directly harming customers with something like food poisoning, you also have to do things right for the sanitation inspectors who may decide to drop in on you and see how you really run things. Even an employee who sees food handling mistakes in the kitchen may squeal on you, especially if they ever lose their job.
And there is more to this than simply properly storing food and disposing of waste.
One of the basic things that must be done is to constantly clean and keep clean food preparation areas and equipment. This seems simple, but it's simple to screw it up, too. For instance, different cutting boards should be used to prepare meat, seafood, vegetables. Some places use stainless steel counters on which to do cutting, but this can dull your knives and some people say meat absorbs a little bit of "steel flavor" and, while harmless, that's not good. Plastic cutting boards are more sanitary and easier to clean than wooden ones. Each cutting board needs to be thoroughly rinsed or put into the washer after every meal preparation. Chlorine bleach may be used for a deeper cleaning, but make sure the rinse is extremely thorough if bleach is used for cleaning.
Utensils need to be washed as well after each meal preparation in which they are used.
Meats have to be cooked at least to certain minimal internal temperatures in order to assure the death of any pathogens that may have crept inside them. Red meats and pork need to be cooked to not less than 69 and poultry and seafood to at least 74. Even if someone demands a rare steak, cook it to that minimum temperature for at least 15 seconds or there is a serious risk of food poisoning. Any meat that you have reason to feel is not very fresh or well-kept needs to be made very well-done.
Preparing raw foods such as sushi requires extreme care. Serving these foods really means that you have to just have a top-notch clean kitchen and preparation staff, period, in addition to making doubly sure your sushi supplier is very sanitary. Disposable gloves and hair coverings or tie-backs must always be worn by people handling sushi and the preparation area should be kept so clean that, as the saying goes, one could eat off the floor. Any sushi that is not at its freshest needs to be thrown out.
It is surprising how many kitchen workers neglect to wash their hands with soap and hot water in between meal preparation, even when raw meat is involved. Hand washing between meal preparations is a must and washing hands in between say, handling meat and vegetables is a very good idea.
By implementing a strictly sanitized food preparation system, you can be assured that your customers will be safe, your business will be safe from legal suits and bad publicity, and if there is a legal suit you will win because you'll have done the right things.
About the author: Malcolm J. Richmond will reveal you how to avoid food safety risks to your restaurant business. Visit the "Food Safety" website for more great information on protecting your business by employing health and safety standards.
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