How important is hygiene for a food business?
We would say it is the lifeline! Think about it - can a food business really function without hygiene? The answer is a loud, resounding NO. 

In this interview, we speak to Maciej Kucznyski, Vice President of Global Operations, Kitopi to understand the interesting hygiene operations followed at Kitopi. 

How important is hygiene for you and what are the hazards associated with not having proper hygiene protocols in a business like yours?

Without hygiene and food safety, we wouldn't be in this business. For us, it is a given. It is a prerequisite to even existing in this industry. I would say we want to believe that we are obsessed with hygiene and food quality. I often combine those two because they go hand in hand in the way we train our team. For example, on the hazards, I think as everybody else, there happen to be issues with whatever foreign objects. However, that is really a fraction of our orders. Like when we have thousands of orders in a month, we are talking about less than 10 issues out of which 1 or 2 are justified. We have a very good system of tracking from the moment the product or ingredients arrive to our kitchen, through the production when the orders go to the customers, we can actually track every single order end to end to ensure that if any issue happens, we can resolve it almost immediately. It is super important and we will never give up on that. 

Tell us about the challenges you face in maintaining hygiene across your kitchens.
For us, the biggest challenge is the complexity of our business - large kitchens, a lot of people, some kitchens that do thousands of orders a day and the largest kitchen has around 100 people working at any given moment. Our kitchens operate for 20 to 24 hours per day so I would say the scale, size, complexity and diversity of our team is what makes it difficult. But again, we have  systems and processes that give us enough certainty to keep it in control. 

How do you overcome these challenges?

We have very clear standards and thorough robust training programs. Apart from this, a lot of tracking and inspection, a lot of independent teams coming in and doing audits, assessments and reviews (like operations teams, quality assurance teams, culinary teams, etc) help us overcome our challenges. Most of the complex checks that we do will always start with the section that is around hygiene, cleanliness, food and workplace safety. 

To summarize, clear standards, regular trainings and constant measuring and monitoring the application of those standards are pivotal. 

Tell us about your hygiene best practices
We have something called sparking clean back to basic shifts. We have our senior managers from our headquarters joining our teams once every quarter during six to eight hours deep cleaning shifts. So you can imagine our directors and vice presidents rolling up their sleeves, going on their sleeves and cleaning the floor or cleaning the ovens and it is great because it shows how important hygiene is to us. It also helps us to create a spirit of bonding. We really believe that our team members are partners in this business and there are no real barriers between senior and junior people. We work together to care for our customers and for our business. 

Another thing I would like to mention is our Sparkling Clean Reward and Recognition Program. . Every kitchen and every restaurant is part of the program by default. If they hit certain targets and certain scores, then they are eligible for an award which is material financial for our team members. But there is also a symbolic award which is known as the golden broom and that’s something people aspire to have. It shows our team that having fun at work is also important. 

Which cleaning technologies do you use and which ones are you interested in implementing in the near future?

We recently started looking at combining video monitoring together with AI systems - that is a new technology. We have robots helping us monitor the frequency of hand washing practices. We use a lot of data driven technologies because they help us track the history and link cleanliness scores with the quality and feedback from customers. I know it sounds quite distant but it is not. We believe that if you have the right mindset around cleanliness and hygiene, it translates into the overall execution and quality of the food. I think we are still exploring what else we can do in this area and we will definitely continue working with our market partners. 

What are your thoughts about sustainable cleaning?

We, along with our hygiene partners, are very conscious of our responsibility to reduce the consumption of water, electricity and at the same time, the use of chemicals. We want to have as little impact on the environment as possible. We do train our team a lot in this regard. We have dosing and pumps and whatever it takes to make sure that we don’t abuse the resources. But obviously, there is more that we will do as we keep exploring to ensure that we are in line with our philosophy around sustainability. 

What kind of training do you provide to your cleaning staff to ensure optimum hygiene?

If you start as a new joiner, your first four weeks are known as orientation and the first two weeks are mostly about the standards of hygiene and basic food safety. You have to pass a difficult test to move to the next stage of your orientation. Passing the ultimate certificate allows you to actually pass the probations. We link your performance and knowledge and application of the standards together with your probation if you are a team member. We recertify our team members every six months. So even if you were certified once, you will need to go for refreshment training and another quick test using our learning management system. 

For managers, if you actually want to move the ranks, you will go through a very detailed training. We have around 40 SOPs around the cleanliness and hygiene, not only of the store but also of the equipment. It is a combination of preventive maintenance, hygiene and cleanliness. You can’t really pass onto the next level if you don’t check this very specific training. So as I said, what works for us are the regular certifications that we do and the fact that we have everything in digital versions that provide us easy and quick access back and forth. 

Tell us about a typical cleaning schedule at Kitopi

We obviously have daily cleaning schedules. If you are a team member working at a station, you will know what you have to cover, what are the areas you are responsible for keeping clean. We promote the mindset of clean-as-you-go. So whenever you leave your station or whenever you are less busy, use that time to tidy up.

Then we have weekly cleaning plans or cleaning schedules which are more detailed. These are more specific common areas of the restaurant or the kitchen. We also have deep cleaning shifts. We do them once or twice a month, depending on the size of the kitchen. We also have the cleaning hour - when the business gets slightly less busy or slower, a bell rings for everybody to know that if you are not taking your break, your responsibility is to clean your station for the next 60 minutes. 

These are very simple practices and not very different to other businesses, However, I think what we do well is that we track, we monitor that they are implemented.