September is National Food Safety Education month – a great time to reinforce safe-food processes and their significance to staff.

It is time to once again refocus our attention on the thing that is most important to our business’ survival: the safety of our customers. That’s right – September is National Food Safety Education month.

While we probably won’t be having any lavish parties to celebrate the occasion, National Food Safety Education Month is a great reminder to refocus your establishment’s attention to food safety related issues.

For instance, do you know how often your employees wash their hands? Do your line cooks know the proper temperature to cook chicken thoroughly? When was the last time you checked the water temperature of the dishwasher?

In each restaurant there are several thousand things that could lead to a foodborne illness outbreak on a daily basis, so let this month serve as a reminder to follow the appropriate food safety guidelines.

When an employee forgets to do something important or ignores an important policy – i.e., washing hands correctly and regularly, observing critical temperatures – it is the manager/owner’s job to remind them. When the management misses it, too, then you have a potential foodborne illness outbreak on your hands.

In this edition of The Safe Zone, I will explore the most-commonly forgotten food safety guidelines and how best to remind your staff – from top to bottom – to pay attention to these issues.

The Wash Cycle
If you read this article regularly, you may be sick of hearing this, but here it is again: Improper hand-washing procedures are the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants. Are your employees using hot enough water? Are they washing every time after they handle money? Are paper towels always stocked? Is the soap always full?

Take 20 minutes out of one shift to stand by the sink and you might be shocked at how often your staff fails to wash their hands.

There are countless resources available that will explain the proper way to wash hands, and how frequently they should be washed, such as the FDA’s Hand Hygiene guidelines. Print the instructions and stick them on the wall by each properly equipped sink to serve as a reminder for your employees.

Also, I recommend that you devote an entire month – and not necessarily September – to constantly remind your employees when you see them neglecting to wash their hands after touching something that is potentially contaminated. It will then become part of their routine and they will do it automatically without being asked. This should be your ultimate goal.

Diamonds Are E.Coli’s Best Friend
Most restaurant managers forget to check regularly, but food handlers that wear excessive jewelry are more at risk of causing contamination than those that don’t. To begin with, the chemicals used to clean jewelry can be harmful to consume.

Think about it – what do you think would happen when a freshly polished ring touches a raw vegetable that will end up in a customer’s salad? More importantly, harmful bacteria love to hide in the little nooks and crannies of rings, watches and bracelets. Once in there, the best way to kill the bacteria is to thoroughly clean and sanitize the piece of jewelry – and I don’t know of any foodservice employee that takes time to clean their jewelry in the middle of a busy shift.

To prevent employee jewelry from becoming a major hindrance to your food’s safety, make sure you are maintaining a safe standard, such as limiting the jewelry an employee wears during a shift, and then make sure the policy is being followed.

Ice, Ice Baby
Whether you know it or not, ice is considered a food and should be treated as such. Just like a french fry or piece of filet mignon, ice is also being ingested by the patrons. Therefore, a contaminated ice cube can cause the same amount of damage as a bad piece of meat.

Think about this the next time you see your employees dig their hand through the ice bin to fill a glass with ice or using the actual glass to dig into the ice bin. Going back to hand washing, if your employees’ dirty hands come into contact with ice that ends up in someone’s drink, only bad things can happen.

To eliminate the possibility of this happening, most health departments require you to keep a scoop around the ice bin (not in the bin), and that your employees use the scoop each and every time they get ice. This is one of the most common health department violations for which restaurants are cited.

You also want to make sure that any time glass is broken near the area where an ice bin is located, all of the ice is melted and the bin is cleaned thoroughly before being refilled. This should also be done at the end of every shift as part of your daily operations.

Sick Leave
When I worked as a server and bartender in restaurants, I always had the idea that going to work even though I wasn’t feeling well was a noble gesture, sort of like I was toughing it out and taking one for the team. After taking several food safety education courses, I realized that going to work while ill is one of the most irresponsible things a foodservice employee can do.

Although my heart was in the right place, the potential to spread whatever virus I had to my guests was greatly increased. If you see an employee sniffling, coughing, sneezing – or if their voice sounds hoarse – don’t hesitate to send them home. It is better to be understaffed and safe than to send your guests home with stomach flu. Elderly guests and small children are the most susceptible to pick up a communicable virus, so if you cater to these age groups this rule is particularly important.

Also, make sure your employees understand they will not be looked down upon or punished for calling in sick. In fact, you should encourage them to do so if they feel something coming on. Sure, some will take advantage of this policy by calling out because they want the night off, but safety is the most important thing here.

Constant Reminder
The above are just a few examples of things that commonly happen in restaurants and for which you should be on the constant lookout. I encourage you to take multiple shifts during this month to do a thorough food safety audit of your restaurant and find out where your problem areas are.

Once you find your weak spots, fixing them is a matter of explaining the right way to do things and following up until they become routine. Again, your business depends on it.

Lee Biars is the director of industry relations for Safe Food Solutions. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .