Best Tips for Controlling Food Quality and Safety in Your Restaurant

Food quality and safety is a central concern for any restaurant – making headlines with illness outbreaks is certainly not the right type of PR anybody would want for their restaurant. Furthermore, just recently the FDA announced an idea to introduce additional fees to help fund the Food Safety Modernization Act which, though met with opposition, shows the government's incentive to work in that direction. That being said, there's a lot every restaurant owner can do to improve food quality in their restaurant and thus improve the overall dining experience for customers.

Food Safety Focus

Basic food safety guidelines
To rephrase a common saying – food safety starts in the kitchen. Apart from all sorts of rules and regulations about food safety, there's a lot which you can do by simply paying attention and asking your employees to pay attention too. There are two aspects to this process: one of them is the quality of the food, the other – its safety. While quality is certainly important in order for the food to look and taste well, safety must not be underestimated either.

There are a number of regulations that need to be taken into account when you're trying to make sense of food safety and quality in your restaurant. First of all, there is the National Food Safety Month - a campaign by the National Restaurant Association meant to inform and help restaurants achieve maximum safety in their kitchens. It offers a number of steps to be followed which can also be implemented week by week. These are, for example, 'Personal Hygiene Practices that Prevent Cross-Contamination' or 'Cleaning and Sanitizing Practices That Will Prevent Cross-Contamination'. As Greg Beachey, senior academic relations and program manager with the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, stressed: “While we celebrate National Food Safety Month each September, food safety is a priority year-round.”

Battery Operated Wall Mounted Lighted Makeup Mirror

tom.arthur / Food Photos / CC BY-NC-SA

Advanced guidelines and HACCP
Secondly, one can also turn to the Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) for additional information. The FDA's website states that: "HACCP is a management system in which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement and handling, to manufacturing, distribution and consumption of the finished product.“ This system is meant to support managerial control within the restaurant industry and to help find a common language between regulators and the industry. The goal of this is that services will be up to standards and regulators will at the same time take into account the complex operations that take place in any food establishment when devising regulations.

The HAACP features a specific manual for the voluntary use of HACCP Principles for Operators of Food Service and Retail Establishments which examines all central questions which arise in connection to food safety and regulation. These include the purpose and scope of HACCP, how it can and should be applied, how restaurants can develop their food safety system and others. Notable and a good starting point are the seven HACCP principles which can give you a clear idea about what HACCP is and how it can be implemented.

Managing your restaurant properly and ensuring that food quality and safety are always well taken care of can improve the functioning of your establishment drastically, and save you a lot of unnecessary worries. Furthermore, among other things, it can also reduce products loss, increase product quality and increase profit.