Food Prep The Right Way
Preparing food isn’t exactly a walk in the park these days. At a time when the danger of COVID-19 and diseases are still lurking around the corner, there are still ways to keep everyone safe from harm. The Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) have released a series of advisories to help the public protect themselves through simple ways. As an online food business owner, the following health and safety guidelines should help you get familiarized with the minimum health measures of the new normal.
1. Setting up your kitchen
To make sure that your food is clean and safe when it gets to the customer, set up a clean and sanitized kitchen. Always have a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol or disinfectant close by and have soap and water for hand washing.
See to it that your kitchen is well ventilated and that air flows freely to prevent any microbes from staying in the air. Provide a clean trash bin where you could put waste and disposables. If possible, assign one door to be the entrance and another to be the exit to minimize movement and lessen the chance that germs and viruses can be carried into the kitchen. You can also place a floor mat soaked in disinfectant or foot bath at the entry of the kitchen or your home. This way, you can also kill any pathogens that might have stuck to you or your employees’ shoes.
Once you’ve got your kitchen set up, you can start getting into cooking.
2. Keep the kitchen clean
Make sure that all people working in the kitchen are healthy. Everyone who is handling food should wear masks or personal protective equipment (PPE) to prevent germs and viruses from spreading. Only people who should be cooking should be in the kitchen. Make sure that your kitchen is not crowded by strictly observing a 1.5 meter physical distance from each other in the kitchen.
Appliances, cookware, and utensils will be full of leftover residue from cooking, so take care to wash them every time they are used. Simple!
And always remember to clean up the rest of the kitchen: Sanitize surfaces, handles, and knobs with alcohol or another disinfectant every 30 minutes. And the most basic and most important tip: wash your hands properly!
3. Keep your people healthy
If anyone in your staff is sick, is showing symptoms of COVID-19, or has recently been someplace where there are a lot of COVID-19 cases, don’t let them go to work. It is best to have them take an RT-PCR or COVID-19 test at an accredited hospital or testing facility.
If anyone in your staff has had contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, let them have a 14-day home quarantine, wherein they must be separated and forbidden from physical contact with other family members. This way, if the employee tests positive, the chance of spreading the virus is low. To keep the rest of your people healthy, follow the minimum health standards set by health officials.
If any of your employees do test positive, without symptoms or only mild, they will be required to go to one of the quarantine facilities nationwide where they will stay until they fully recover from COVID-19. More serious cases will require hospitalization.
Before starting work, take note of the recent whereabouts of your kitchen staff such as crowded places or other areas where COVID-19 infection is likely. Kitchen staff should follow proper personal hygiene and remove jewelry and accessories when preparing food because they may harbor microbes that might get into the food.
Employees should also wear closed shoes and clip their nails to prevent any dirt from outside getting inside the kitchen—just as it would have been in any normal setting. Remember that all precautions should be taken seriously.
Take note that you also need to provide transportation for your employees, especially if they live quite far from the workplace. Company vehicles should seat employees one seat apart and provide sanitizers.
4. Delivery
Once the cooking is done, the food still has to be sent to the waiting customer. Before you hand off that package to the delivery person, keep in mind a few things:
- Set a clear drop-off site that delivery personnel can easily see. Always tell the delivery service clearly when and how the pick-up will be arranged.
- If possible, don’t make direct physical contact when handing over the food. Wear a mask when talking to outsiders and always keep a pen with you at all times just in case you need to sign anything.
- For restaurants with dine-in options, the DTI has even stricter guidelines to follow, which you can find in their official pages.
Most importantly, always follow health safety standards even as you step outside the kitchen. Sickness and disease don’t pick the time of day to attack. Being open to serve is a tough call in these difficult times, but with a dash of determination and a healthy dose of carefulness, there is certainly hope for better days ahead.
With many food businesses emerging online, safety and sanitation measures should be a business owners’ top priority. Remember that these steps make all the difference for you, your business and your customers. Keeping a clean environment will lessen the spread of any virus and will keep your food business up and running even during this new normal.
