Safety first!

This mantra holds true in food establishments and how! Proper food safety practices help prevent food borne illnesses and other hygiene issues. We spoke to Ms. Aswathy Chulliparambil, Food Safety Consultant and Trainer at Rentokil Boecker about tips to ensure food handlers follow food safety and hygiene protocols.  

Proper training and auditing

We have companies implementing food safety standards by providing proper training and auditing. Now, speaking of 5 tips to ensure employees follow food safety and hygiene protocols, the first thing I would like to highlight is proper training because training plays a very important role in implementing proper food safety standards. For this, we need to have competent staff who will be clear about the policies, processes, regulations and standards that they need to follow even during training. 

Once the training is done and upon successful completion of their examination, the would be good to start their work because they will know what they should be doing. 

Personal hygiene 

Secondly, I would like to talk about personal hygiene. Once the food handlers are inside the food establishments, they should know about personal hygiene. So whatever they have learned in the training, now it's time to implement. 

I believe we all agree that personal hygiene is very crucial when it comes to food safety. Most of the contamination can come from inappropriate action by food handlers. If they maintain good personal hygiene, they can reduce or even eliminate food safety hazards. To maintain proper personal hygiene, one would need to begin with proper hand washing.  Food handlers have to ensure that their hands are completely lathered in soap and they are following every step of hand washing. 

Wound dressing and inculcating good habits

Apart from this, I would talk about proper wound dressing. If there are any cuts or bruises, food handlers have to cover them properly so the bacteria does not spread. 

We need to have proper blue colored waterproof plasters. That's also a part of personal hygiene. Food handlers should also avoid bad habits such as coughing or sneezing over the food, using their fingers to taste their food, etc. 

Regular health checkups

I would also like to highlight the importance of health checkups all food handlers must go through. In Dubai, it is a mandatory requirement that all food handlers should undergo a regular health check to ensure that they are free from any communicable diseases. This is a very important aspect of personal hygiene. 

Use of PPE

Then comes the use of PPE (personal protective equipment). This includes hairnets, gloves, shoes, etc and ensures there is no contamination. 

Cleaning and disinfection

Now let us talk about cleaning because I believe cleaning has equal importance in food industries. We have to ensure that proper cleaning is done on food contact surfaces, equipment, or any surface that is prone to grease or dirt or any other contamination. Before starting cleaning, the food handlers should have a clear idea about the steps of cleaning. The next step should be proper disinfection. While they do the disinfection, the staff should be aware of concentrations and contact times or the best person they can get trained with regards to the chemicals. I would also like to add that while you do the disinfection of fruits and vegetables, concentrations and contact times are even more important so that the whole process becomes effective. 

Food safety measures

The motto of food safety measures is to avoid any source of contamination. The key step here is to keep food separate. Proper separation and segregation is very important. For instance, we keep raw and cooked food separate at all times. 

Also when you handle raw food and move onto work with other foods, ensure you clean your hands in between so that there is no chance of contamination. In addition to this, use proper color coded knives and chopping boards. If you are using reusable cloths (which is not recommended), make sure it is color coded as well. 

Process safety

We need to ensure that we are following the correct temperatures. So, we have to maintain temperatures depending on what is required in each country. Even inside chillers and freezers, food items have to be properly separated and segregated. 

Now I would also like to touch upon cooking standards. The food must be cooked properly and evenly so that all the pathogens are killed. 

I personally believe that these are tips that will help food handlers to ensure proper food safety.