Business Technology

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.

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.

There’s more to it all than just proper food storage and waste disposal, too.

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.

To keep them free of harmful bacteria, meats must always be cooked to a minimal internal temperature. For red meats and pork, this temperature is a minimum if 69 degrees centigrade. For seafood it is 74 degrees. Even if a rare steak has been ordered, it must be cooked to at least this minimum temperature for at least 15 seconds to minimize the risk of food poisoning. Any meat which is not very fresh should be cooked to 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 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.

Tags: small business
Filed under: small business