Restaurant Hygiene Rules You Should Know

When you started opening your business, you probably tried to find out all the rules you should follow so you don’t have and don’t cause problems later, but what about restaurant hygiene standards, what did you study? All these rules, although monitored by the health surveillance of each location, are established by the Health Department, and can generate fines and even closure of activities for those who cannot comply with them.

Therefore, seeking to respect them is the least you should do, not only to avoid losing money or even losing your restaurant but mainly to value the health of your customers.

In this article, we separate some of these restaurant hygiene standards that are among the main ones. 

Restaurant hygiene standards you must know and respect

These standards can be separated into four distinct groups to facilitate understanding, namely:

• Personal hygiene care that each member of the restaurant must have;

• Care with food handling;

• Care with the storage and disposal of food;

• Care for the hygiene of the property and equipment.

Let’s go?

Personal hygiene precautions that every member of the restaurant should have

The use of caps by everyone is essential to prevent hair from falling on food, it is very important that it is kept in place, and that men shave constantly.

Nails that are always clean and without nail polish or foundation are also mandatory, as well as the daily change of uniforms, with a view to always using clean items at work. In addition to these points, there are others that must be respected by your team, such as ALWAYS washing your hands after using the bathroom or handling objects that may transmit some type of contamination to food.

Care with food handling

As far as food handling is concerned, other restaurant hygiene standards your staff should follow include also washing your hands before and after handling any food.

Avoiding whistling or sneezing in the kitchen, among other things, is also necessary to deliver dishes free of any kind of contamination to customers. And, speaking of contamination, we must not forget the temperature, a determining factor: hot and cold foods should not be worked on or exposed together.

Care for food storage and disposal

Good management of your restaurant’s stock is important for several reasons, and one of them is to ensure that food is stored correctly. Did you know, for example, that after being opened, many of these foods must be stored in a different way, according to the manufacturer’s instructions? And that the grains should be in a space intended for them. And which expired or spoiled products should NEVER stay in the storage area?

The latter need to be discarded immediately in a place far from the handling and consumption area, to avoid any type of contamination and the appearance of insects.

Care for the hygiene of the property and equipment

And, speaking of disposal, how about we also talk about the dumps?

All must be kept away from food, regardless of whether they are being stored, handled or consumed, and must be made of an easy-to-clean material. Those that will be used by the kitchen team must have a foot-operated opening.

The other objects and equipment, even if they do not have direct contact with food, must be in perfect condition of use and be made of materials recommended for restaurants. Do you know that wooden cutting board? Imagine how many bacteria she can keep because of her cracks, even being constantly sanitized… A lot, isn’t it? Rusty items should also not be present in your establishment, under any circumstances.

As for the property itself, hygiene standards for restaurants determine it has doors and windows that prevent the entry of insects, besides light-colored floors, waterproof material, and easy cleaning.

How to ensure your property follows these rules to the letter

One of the best ways to ensure that these restaurant hygiene standards are adhered to at all times is to make your staff aware of them. There is even training provided by health surveillance that can help.

As everything is forgettable, however, create a checklist that is visible to everyone to follow every day, in addition to other reminders. For example:

The employee bathroom, the notice can remind you of the importance of washing your hands.

In the locker room, the notice can remind you of the importance of not leaving in uniform.

The kitchen, the warning, can remind you of the importance of keeping your hair up with a cap.

By the way, in order not to do anything wrong, at the risk of fines and warnings,

we recommend that you to visit our website, where you can acquire further information on the subject and understand more about how serious it is.

With regard to working on these norms with your team, don’t just focus on “warning”, but on doing a whole awareness job. Nothing prevents you from even talking about the risk of your employees becoming unemployed if something is not done according to the law, as this would be a way of being more serious, but also talk about the importance of thinking about the OTHER in this process.

All of your restaurant’s customers are (or will be if your business isn’t working yet) people looking for quality food in a pleasant environment, and that’s the minimum you should deliver. Food contamination, in this context, would at best lead to a lawsuit or the bankruptcy of your business, but it could easily cause death, so we must take these rules extremely seriously.

Do you want to know other subjects that you should know so that your restaurant performs as expected? Get to know the ebook The Secret of Successful Restaurants, created to help both those who are starting and those who already have a business in progress, but would like to know where to improve.

You can learn more about it at the link above, or contact us and get in touch with our team for more information.