Brush up your catering cleaning

ENSURING THAT a food and beverage operation is clean and tidy is a normal prerequisite of good food hygiene practice but post-pandemic when hygiene protocols are even more visible than usual, it pays for hospitality operators to make cleaning and hygiene both front and back of house a priority.

Good cleaning means good hygiene

Alongside a thorough HACCP plan, using high quality colour coded cleaning equipment along with good cleaning practices are key to avoiding cross-contamination. So, at a basic level, the same equipment should not be used to clean surfaces in contact with food as cleaning the floor. Using colour coded brushes for different types of cleaning jobs will help keep a rigorous cleaning programme in place. This is a practice widely used in food manufacturing which is now being adopted in many catering operations.

The importance of training staff in food hygiene

Once food hygiene procedures are in place, all staff, including contract cleaners, need to have adequate training to ensure they are implemented effectively. It’s good practice to ensure any new starters have an induction to understand the basic principles of food safety relevant to their role before they start work. It is also ideal to record any training, so you can show enforcement officers during their visits that you have implemented a training programme throughout the business to include not only kitchen and floors staff, but cleaning staff as well.

Mariane Hodgkinson is hygiene specialist at Hillbrush, a leading supplier of cleaning tools.

For more information visit www.hillbrush.com/uk