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How To Prepare Your Commercial Kitchen For Inspection

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Commercial kitchens are regulated by certain government bodies that ensure they are well-maintained and hygienic. One of the ways to do that is through surprise inspections that are unavoidable. Health inspections are thorough and detail-oriented. This is why you should you’re your kitchen clean, follow the codes, and use commercial refrigerator services to ensure the appliances are well-maintained. Below, we have some important tips for you to consider that will help you pass the inspections. Let’s begin!

Know The Rules

The first tip is quite basic and simple but ignored by the majority of restaurants. Apart from hygiene and several other important factors, the Food and Drug Administration also focuses on the way equipment is used and handled. This not only means that you need to train your restaurant staff but also make sure they follow the rules just in case a surprise inspection pops up.

Furthermore, the FDA publishes new codes every four years that are meant to be followed by restaurants. This ensures that the food offered is of high quality and the customers receive exactly what they had paid for. Therefore, keep an eye on the changing Food Codes and communicate the changes to your employees as well so that they form a habit.

Be Aware Of The Most Common Violations

It is not difficult to be aware of the most common violations especially if you have several other restaurants in your area. You will come across restaurants being fined over one thing or another such as allowing pests in, serving unhygienic food, and storing food items improperly.

As mentioned earlier, food inspections are extremely detail-oriented. Therefore, they will check every inch of your kitchen and do not think you are clever enough to hide something from them. Even if you do and they are able to find out, you can be heavily fined or sealed temporarily.

Develop A Maintenance Checklist

Perhaps the best way to ensure that your commercial kitchen is always maintained according to the health standards is by developing a maintenance checklist. You should distribute responsibilities between your employees and ask them to strictly follow the checklist.

Your list should include sanitizing surfaces, cleaning kitchen equipment, cleaning the floors, emptying the trash cans, etc. All of these factors are included in the inspection as well. Therefore, even a minor mistake such as placing the trash can near the food preparation area could lead to a heavy fine.

If you believe that your employees are not that skilled to clean the kitchen, hire a cleaning service that specializes in cleaning tasks. At the same time, they may also identify minor cracks or damages and fix them before they turn serious.

Make Sure You Have Certified Staff

Running a commercial kitchen is not as simple as hiring anyone out there and preparing food. In fact, you need to have certified staff that possess the skills and experience to perform important tasks. The hospitality industry is based on strict principles and professionalism, which means that your employees should be well-equipped with all the basic food-related techniques.

Conduct Self-Inspections

Finally, self-inspections will help you keep up with maintenance at the end of each day. Once the kitchen has closed, you should overlook the cleaning process and educate and train the employees about proper cleaning practices.

In addition to that, you should also step in at peak hours to inspect how the employees maintain the kitchen, which includes health inspection, staff personal hygiene, sanitation, and pest prevention. All these factors are deeply examined by the authorities and they might take serious action if you are found not abiding by the Food Codes.

Make sure that you focus on pest prevention and garbage disposal to prevent extremely serious fines. If there is one thing that the authorities hate is pests. Any shelves, storage spaces, visible holes, or cracks can easily catch their attention, which could become a breeding ground for the insects as well.

Considering all such factors will help tremendously in keeping the kitchen in tip-top condition should a surprise inspection were to take place.

Final Word

Concluding, preparing your commercial kitchen for health inspections is quite easy if you were to follow the tips mentioned above. Simply make sure to regularly educate your employees so that they are up to date with the latest practices and get help from commercial appliance repair services to keep every appliance working optimally. topac

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