Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Manager’s Responsibilities

According to the Food Code, the restaurant owner and/or manager needs to ensure that a manager or supervisor is on the premises during all hours of operation. This person also must have demonstrated knowledge of food-borne illness prevention, HACCP principles, and the Food Code requirements. The manager/supervisor needs to demonstrate this knowledge by:

• Complying with the Code.

• Being certified in food safety through an accredited program such as the
ServSafe program offered through the National Restaurant Association.

• Responding correctly to the inspector’s questions

The areas of knowledge the manager/supervisor should have include:


• Describing the relationship between the prevention of food-borne disease and the personal hygiene of an employee.

• Explaining the responsibility of the manager for preventing the transmission of food-borne disease by an employee who has a disease or medicalcondition that may cause food-borne disease.

• Describing the symptoms associated with the diseases that are transmissible through food.

• Explaining the relationship between maintaining the time and temperature of potentially hazardous food and the prevention of food-borne illness.

• Knowing the food temperatures and times required for the safe cooking of potentially hazardous food, including meat, poultry, eggs and fish.

• Stating the required temperatures and times for the safe refrigerated storage, hot holding, cooling and reheating of potentially hazardous food.

• Describing the relationship between the prevention of food-borne illness and:
– Cross-contamination.
– Hand contact with ready-to-eat-food.
– Hand washing.
– Maintaining the establishment in clean condition and good repair.

• Explaining the relationship between food safety and providing equipment that is sufficient in number and capacity, and properly designed, constructed, located, installed, operated, maintained and cleaned.

• Explaining correct procedures for cleaning and sanitizing utensils and the food-contact surfaces of equipment.

• Identifying the source of water used and measures taken to ensure that it remains protected from contamination such as providing protection from backflow and precluding the creation of cross connections.

• Explaining the hazards in consuming raw or undercooked meat, poultry, eggs and fish.

To be continued...

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Order It The Right Way

Controlling food cost starts with ordering the right amount of food. With correct order pars you can ensure that you not only have the product on hand and minimize 86ing food we can also ensure we have a manageable food inventory.

When we have too much food it can affect us in many ways:


• Hard to keep organized and store correctly
• Incorrect product rotation
• Excessive waste and theft
• Multiple containers open of the same product
• Missed counts during inventory

When our inventory is too low just the opposite happens:


• Forcing us to buy products locally at a higher price
• Increased product transfers from store to store and possible accounting errors
• 86ing food and possible reducing guest satisfaction
• Reducing overall menu mix and possible increase in theoretical food cost
• Employee frustration and dissatisfaction

You have many tools available for setting pars, some of which are:


• Product Mix history
• Order history from suppliers
• Order guides
• Sales trends
• Sales forecasts

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Checking Product Temperatures Upon Delivery

Temperature control is a very important factor in keep foods safe. Restaurant owners, managers and employees should ensure that the food they receive is at the proper temperature. Deliveries should be inspected for temperature abuses upon receipt.

A food that is labeled frozen and shipped frozen should be received frozen.

Most potentially hazardous food, except milk and shellfish, should be kept at a temperature of 5 ̊C (41 ̊F) or below when received. Specific laws apply to the temperature of milk and shellfish.

Use the following guidelines when checking the temperatures of received foods:



• To check the temperature of meat, poultry and fish, insert the thermometer’s probe into the thickest part of the product. You can also check the surface temperature if you desire.

• Check the temperature of vacuum-packed items by placing a thermometer between the packages.

• Check the temperature of liquids or packaged foods by opening a container and = inserting the thermometer probe into the food to the proper depth to immerse the thermometer sensor.

• To check the thermometer of bulk foods, fold the bag around the thermometer.

• Check the temperature of live shellfish by inserting the thermometer probe into the middle of the case of shellfish and getting an ambient temperature reading.

• When checking eggs, be sure to check the ambient temperature of the delivery truck.