Sanitation and Safty

i believe as chefs, we have a duty of care to our customers first and foremost. So as a result, i almost make myself completely responsible for this side of things.

If the staff wont take care of the hygiene themselves, i assign the crappy jobs to them, regardless of muttering and do the hygiene specific stuff myself.

Call it professional vanity etc, but i believe that it is just a little too early in my career to have something like "restaurant closed due to bad hygiene, food poisoning, litigation because of, etc" following me around (not that it is appropriate ever).

[This message has been edited by Nick.Shu (edited October 23, 2000).]

Well Said! I am not in a managerial positon right now but, I like to watch out for potential problems amongst myself as well as fellow cooks in the kitchen I work. I feel that we have a permanent obligation to serve foods or anything the we provide, on or off the clock, using safe, sanitary, and wholesome techniques and products. I try to help out anybody working along side me, and let them know about any info concerning sanitary procedures, according to the local health code, (concidering it may be something they aren't aware of). Hopefully they take the info and put it to good practice. Because sanitation, hygene, and proper procedures in preparation are big conserns in the success of this industry and life! We have this as an ongoing-everlasting responsibility to our guest, friends, family, anybody and everybody!

[This message has been edited by layjo (edited October 24, 2000).]

I agree that sanitation and safety issues are always there and always so vitally important! Running a Law School Cafe was always fun--you couldn't have a more litigious set of clients!

Safety - FOH and BOH. I will never forget the day one of the kids (in the middle of the lunch rush) slipped on salad dressing the guy ahead of her dropped on the floor! The inspections from insurance companies were intense and boy do you feel put on the defensive! "Why wasn't this wiped up as soon as it happened..." If every idiot who went through the line didn't drop on the floor...I had actually just wiped it up and gone to refill some empty crocks! (After 3 months and countless interviews and surprise in the middle of lunch inspections, I was let off the hook, phew!--I was doing everything reasonable to keep floor clean and safe).

BOH all kinds of crazy stuff goes on if you are in a union environment! One of my favourites was always my pot washer who didn't think the bottom of pots needed cleaned! (You don't put food on the bottom was his reasoning as he laid saute pan 1 into sautee pan 2...). I wasted more time writing him up and going through a greivence process...

Or the cook that wants to leave 30# of hamburger on the counter to thaw all night...

I think that most of us are aware of the pitfalls and try to enforce safety and sanitattion procedures but those that have not had to sit through a sanitation or servsafe course aren't aware that x action causes y!

How have you found are the best ways to educate your staff?

heheheh, "lame-men terms", heheh.

But seriously, the easiest way to explain the "your not really thinking" situation to people, is to ask them, "have you had food poisoning?" and, "how would your conscience accept the fact that your actions have killed someone by food poisoning?"

Hehe, it seems to work most of the time, especially delivered with extra theatrics. But the most effective thing is visualisation.