Keep it clean
It's called "due diligence" and it's the factor in the food safety law that provides protection to caterers if things go wrong, hygienically, in the kitchen. Demonstrating that you were trying your best to prevent a problem arising could keep you out of prison, help you avoid a hefty fine or stop the environmental health officer (EHO) closing you down.
Kitchens must be cleaned regularly - floors, walls, work surfaces, equipment. Evidence of this regularity is what the EHO looks for on an inspection, so having a cleaning system in place will play a useful part in demonstrating due diligence. There are several of them about, mostly devised by chemical or professional cleaning companies.
The Hygenius Food Safety System from Johnson Wax Professional is a programme of training, wallcharts, HACCP support, monitoring tools and cleaning chemicals. This is the system used by Bristol University's central catering services, where it was introduced by chef-manager Keith Mitchell. His staff work across 12 separate units, from full kitchens to snack kiosks.
"We were using too many cleaning chemicals in the kitchen and I wanted to reorganise the system and streamline the hygiene procedure to make it safer and easier for the staff," he says. "With so much legislation in this area, I want to stay one step ahead of the game and anticipate even higher standards."
Training sessions
With the help of Johnson Wax Professional account manager Darren Percy, Mitchell has reduced the number of cleaning products used to four. Three Brillo products take care of ovens, grills, fryers, walls, floors, doors and surfaces and Active Detergent, which the manufacturer says has a high germ-kill rate of 99.9%, handles all the washing up, coffee machines and other utensils. Percy has also arranged a series of on-site staff training sessions and Mitchell is now qualified as a trainer.
Of course, it is important to check that cleaning programmes are working. According to Biotrace, more than one-third of caterers rely on visual inspection for their hygiene assessment, which, it says, is useful but cannot be relied on. In trials conducted by the company, 85% of caterers failed to tell whether a surface was clean or dirty simply by looking at it.
Inverclyde Council - which is responsible for 750 food premises, 250 of which are regarded as high-risk food producers - took steps to overcome this problem by introducing a Biotrace rapid cleanliness testing system, a swab-based technology giving quick test results on the hygiene status of a surface.
"We originally purchased the system as an educational tool," says the council's principal EHO in the food section, Alan McGaffin. "It provided us with the visual impact needed to highlight the hygiene hazards and has been highly effective in emphasising the dangers of relying on visual inspection."
The Biotrace technology is based on the measurement of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the chemical found in living cells. The presence of ATP on an apparently clean surface indicates that other cellular material, which may pose a hygiene hazard, must be present. Unlike other tests which involve growing cultures over a number of days, the Biotrace method claims to deliver a result within seconds. A similar system, SpotCheck, costing less than £2, is available from Celsis International.
Product round-up
The Cleanfix DS range of steam cleaners are designed for hard surfaces or inaccessible corners, dealing with bacteria, grease and grime on work counters, ovens, floors and walls. They are chemical-free and come with large-capacity water tanks and a range of attachments. The cleaners use superheated steam (more than 212ºF), which the manufacturer claims weakens the bond between dirt and surfaces and makes chemicals react faster, thus reducing the quantity of chemicals needed.
Grime Reaper, from Grime Reaper Products, is specifically designed to remove burnt-on black carbon, grease and grime from pots, pans and cooking utensils. The system has touch-panel controls, is fully automatic and uses the company's own detergent, GR, an odourless, non-caustic detergent, which the company claims cleans at the same level of efficiency for 30 days without a significant drop in its pH level.
A US-made pressure cleaning system, Sage, based on a fine jet of hot or cold water delivered under maximum pressure of 800psi, is marketed in the UK by MCS Technical Products, part of the Mecserflex Group. The system can be used in or out of doors to clean floors, walls, work surfaces and equipment. It can be adapted for any size of operation, either as a remote satellite system serving up to 10 different plug-in stations up to 300ft from the central control unit, or as a portable unit. It simultaneously sprays water and lays down cleaning chemicals. A flick of a switch will convert it to water-only for hosing down.
Also from Mecserflex is a range of hose-reel assemblies, accessories and spares from T&S in the USA. It includes Reel Kleens stainless-steel reels with a choice of 35ft- or 50ft-long hoses as standard, which can be wall-, ceiling- or floor-mounted.
Nilfisk-Advance has two small Gerni cleaners, the G-230 and G-250, suitable for washing down work surfaces, equipment, floors and walls and requiring only mains water supply and an electric point to operate. They each weigh 28kg and have two rubber wheels for ease of movement. The G-230 has a maximum operating pressure of 1,960psi, boosted to the equivalent of 2,610psi when fitted with the optional Gerni Turbo Laser nozzle, which produces a powerful jet of water with six times the striking force of conventional spreader nozzles. At minimum pressure it uses eight litres of water a minute. The Turbo laser is fitted as standard to the G-250 model, giving a maximum working pressure of 2,755psi and delivering 10 litres of water per minute.
PHS TreadSmart claims 70% of dirt entering buildings is carried on people's shoes, with 100 people walking 11/2lb of dirt into premises on a wet day. The company says its dust mats trap and conceal dirt, grit and moisture at the base of their crush-resistant pile and make floors less slippery.
A heavy-duty detergent degreaser with bactericidal properties, Attain, has been developed by S&L Chemicals. On heavily soiled greasy or oily surfaces it needs only one part Attain to 20 parts of water, applied by hand spray, manual or steam pressure system, to be effective.
Stimvak‘s 2-in-1 Compact floor cleaner is a multi-role machine suitable for any floor surface from carpet to vinyls, marble, kitchen tiles and profiled surfaces. It has a 21-litre capacity and a 15in powered cleaning width. A range of tools, including those for wall cleaning, together with a range of chemicals is also available.
The Truvox International Multiwash floor-cleaning machine is compact, has high manoeuvrability and strips the floor of dirt and then dries it in a single pass. Four brushes are available - hard for intensive scrubbing, medium for normal maintenance, soft for glazed floors, and an escalator-cleaning brush.
Many companies produce wall charts showing when the various parts of the kitchen and its equipment should be cleaned and the chemicals to be used. Odex has produced three professional cleaning plans and A2 laminated posters covering kitchens, bar and cellar and housekeeping hygiene.
