Food service providers have to maintain safe restaurant practices to prevent any safety hazards and at the same time protect their customers and employees. The restaurants and ghost kitchens must adopt certain storage, food preparation, and protection techniques to keep the food safe. This guide will discuss how restaurants, bars, ghost kitchens, and caterers can avoid food-borne illnesses while preparing foods. Moreover, we will discuss how Ghost Financial can help if certain situations arise.
Food Safety Standards
In a restaurant kitchen, there are high-touch surfaces and therefore, safe food preparation techniques must be adopted. One of the most essential is stopping cross-contamination from happening, which if not handled properly can result in food poisoning or allergies.
Hygiene
First and foremost is to keep the counter surfaces clean to avoid cross-contamination. The staff must wash their hands thoroughly after touching dirty surfaces, raw meats, and after eating or smoking during the workday. Plus, make sure that the staff is using proper tools to handle food such as spatulas, tongs, and gloves during the cooking process.
The cooking staff must also wear hairnets while preparing food and facial nets as well if needed. They must also avoid touching their face while handling food or cleaning any surfaces.
Kitchens can get hot and humid during operating hours. It can result in safety practices being compromised. To make the kitchen more comfortable for the staff, proper ventilation systems should be in place. This will help in avoiding sweat from becoming an inconvenience while cooking and serving food.
Sickness
If a staff member is sick, they should not prepare any food until they are totally recovered. This is important because they can spread bacteria to other coworkers and customers. If you are short-staffed and you have to have them working, ensure that they are learning a face mask all the time.
Preventing Allergic Reactions
Preventing allergic reactions, the same as food poisoning, is important because if a customer gets an allergic reaction due to the food, they can file a lawsuit against the restaurant, which can be detrimental to the food establishment.
To prevent the customer from having an allergic reaction, the waiting staff must ask each customer if they have intolerances to any food and they must communicate this to the staff handling the customer’s food.
Note: Customers might forget to communicate their allergies to the staff and therefore, the staff must ask the customers to double-check with customers.
Here are a few ways you can prevent your customers from having an allergic reaction:
- Educate your staff on some of the most common allergies such as tree nuts, peanuts, fish and shellfish, dairy, wheat, and soy.
- Ensure that foods are prepared in separate utensils after the customer tells the staff about the allergies.
- Prepare a menu with warning labels right next to the food with potential allergens. Always ensure that the warning label is clearly noticeable.
How Can Ghost Financial Help?
Even though restaurants are always mindful of all safety practices, oftentimes mistakes happen and the restaurant can face a lawsuit. What can a restaurant owner do in such situations?
One of the best ways to overcome this roadblock is restaurant insurance. And, one of the best restaurant insurance providers is Ghost Financial. It is one of the best insurance companies for restaurants and ghost kitchens as it is designed for your employees, equipment, property (owned or rented), and website insurance in a fast and hassle-free manner. In addition, Ghost Financial is a preferred insurance partner for several commercial kitchen real estate providers.
The Takeaway
Restaurants, bars, caterers, and ghost kitchens have to maintain food safety practices to prevent lawsuits and claims. These food establishments must train their staff on various food safety protocols and preserve the food in the right way.
FAQs
- How can the quality of food be maintained?
First of all, freshness should be the number one priority. Then you should eliminate artificial ingredients from the cooking process. Furthermore, you should develop a recipe and maintain the same standard so that every time you cook the recipe it is near perfect. Also, you should have a fixed food supplier that maintains the quality of the food.
- Why is food quality important in a restaurant?
The quality of the food is important because in the food serving industry if you don’t serve quality food, you will not attract customers to your establishment. This means that you might have to face losses. The other reason is that if a customer gets food poisoning or an allergic reaction to the food, they can file a lawsuit, which can impact the business negatively.
- Does Ghost Financial provide restaurant insurance?
Yes, Ghost financial provides restaurant insurance. It has an AI-powered platform that quickly gets insurance. Also, it is a preferred insurance partner for several commercial kitchen real estate providers.