Give Your Walk-in a Walkthrough

Walk-in coolers and freezers: When is the last time you went into your property’s walk-in cooler unannounced? If you haven’t done it in a while, you might be surprised. I recently had the experience where an excellent GM asked me to identify opportunity areas in the kitchen operation. I went through the walk-in coolers and freezers and found the following issues within the first 10-minute visual inspection:

• 

  Make sure you have an inventory management process in place.

  Walk-in freezer that was very poorly lit (read: hard to find items), with boxes of frozen foods that had not been dated. Clearly without a date, it is hard to employ the First-in, First-out (FIFO) method of inventory management. How do we know when that box of chicken wings on the bottom of the stack came in? It is possible the box on the bottom is living there in perpetuity while new inventory is stacked on top every week?

• Food items stored unwrapped, with no date, in non-translucent storage pans and hotel pans. In one instance, two different products were in the same tray: one was uncooked raw chicken breast stored at an angle so the blood was running into unwrapped Canadian bacon. In a cruel moment of irony, just that morning I had been in the hotel’s restaurant outlet and sat next to four female business travelers who all ordered the eggs benedict for breakfast. When I eventually asked the sous chef (the executive chef was off at the time) what was going on, there was a general lack of awareness and training about the dangers of such poor food handling and the improper storage methods. The acts and non-acts were not malicious; rather it was a training and education issue. Oh, and he thought buying Lexans for storage purposes was too expensive for the GM to approve.
• Soup stored unwrapped in a large container sitting on the floor directly under the cooler’s condenser unit that was dripping water condensation into the soup. Read the rest of this entry »

Refrigeration and Freezing for Food Preservation

Because food is so important to survival, food preservation is one of the oldest technologies used by human beings. There are many different preservation techniques commonly used today, including:

• Refrigeration and freezing : Canning : Irradiation : Dehydration : Freeze-drying : Salting : Pickling : Pasteurizing : Fermentation : Carbonation : Cheese-making : Chemical preservation

The basic idea behind all forms of food preservation is either:

• To slow down or completely stop the activity of disease-causing bacteria
• To kill the bacteria altogether Read the rest of this entry »

New Jersey Steak House Goes Above and Beyond on Food Safety

When David Walzog got the go-ahead to design the kitchen for Strip House at The Westminster Hotel in Livingston, N.J., the executive chef’s wish list drew on his experiences working at the Monkey Bar and Michael Jordan’s The Steak House N.Y.C., both in New York City.

Walzog insisted on 14 sets of refrigerated drawers—where food is held below 40F—for mise en place. Several drawers were installed on the line, providing more space for plate assembly and enabling 14 cooks to keep surfaces clean and orderly.

Drawers and gaskets are cleaned daily, and twice a week they’re disassembled for bleaching. The quarry tile floor in the kitchen is graded and easy to hose down and power wash, he says.

Strip House’s five walk-in coolers are extra-spacious. The lowest shelf is 10 inches off the floor, two inches higher than health codes mandate, Walzog says, to facilitate mopping and cleaning. Rubber-coated shelving resists rust and cleans and moves easily to accommodate a variety of bin sizes. Safety glass and wire grating enclose two pairs of fluorescent bulbs for ceiling light. Read the rest of this entry »

Organize Your Walk-in Cooler or Freezer

Temperature control and organized inventory are food-safety watchwords.

When Connie’s Pizza, a nine-unit Chicago-based chain, reorganized its walk-in coolers for better efficiency and improved food safety, management liked the results.

“By reconfiguring the coolers we were able to reduce stock and rotate it more effectively,” says owner Ivan Matsunaga. “We saved 3% to 5% on shrinkage and perishables.’’

The reorganized walk-ins also are easier to navigate, which encourages employees to keep the coolers tidy. In accordance with health and sanitation practices, raw meat and poultry is kept on lower shelves. Prepared and ready-to-eat foods and salads, cooked meats and ham are stowed on higher racks. Walk-in temperature is kept at 37F, and foods are tagged and dated upon arrival to ensure proper rotation.

Connie’s cooler remodel was part of a company wide initiative to improve food safety during which the chain’s 250 employees attended demonstrations on sanitation, stock organization and rotation. Because staff participated in the food-safety update, everyone now is held accountable.

Temperature and organization are critical to maintaining a food-safe walk-in cooler, says Kristie Grzywinski, senior program manager for food safety at the National Restaurant Association’s Educational Foundation, Chicago. Keep foods in the cooler at an internal temperature of 41F. “Some restaurants have the luxury of several walk-ins. Most don’t,” explains the microbiologist. “That’s why organization of shelves and inventory is critical.”

She advises designating separate sections for raw and ready-to-eat foods to minimize risk of cross-contamination. Additionally, Grzywinski warns operators not overload racks, which taxes shelving integrity and impedes air circulation. Be aware of temperature variations inside the walk-in: warmer by the door, cooler in the rear. (Store meats, fish and dairy products in the cooler back area and produce closer to the front.) Shelves must be no closer than six inches from the floor to ease cleaning under racks. And allow plenty of headroom in the cooler to ensure adequate air circulation for steady temperatures and lower utility bills. Read the rest of this entry »

Passing Restaurant Inspections for your Walk-in Cooler or Walk-in Freezer

Restaurants are supposed to be checked by health inspectors twice a year. Walk-ins can be a source of food safety violations if not properly maintained and cleaned. If you run a restaurant you can also be stuck with fines totaling thousands of dollars or face temporary closure of your establishment. After the restaurant is closed, an inspector will generally return within 24 hours and will continue to visit until these violations are resolved and the restaurant can reopen.¹ Lost days of operation can cost your business not only revenue, but your reputation as well.

One restaurant in New York paid a total of $8,600 in fines from a food inspection, including $1,200 directly relating to their poorly maintained walk-in cooler.

· $600 – The walk-in cooler was dripping water from the ceiling. Ice build-up on the condenser was present in the walk-in freezer dripping into extra ice storage in a garbage can below. Shelving in multiple refrigeration units was rusted and therefore not easy to clean and particles of rust able to flake off into food products below. The condensation line for the cooler was not connected and the condensate was dripping into a pan at the bottom of the unit.

· $600 – The floor in the walk-in cooler was in disrepair and no longer an easy to clean surface.²

Health code regulations and requirements vary from state to state. The following are areas you could be cited for in your walk-in or other refrigerators:

Lack of interior release in walk-in.

Spoiled or improperly packaged food in your walk-in.

Any spills or pieces of food in the walk-in not cleaned up.

Mold present in the walk-in cooler.

Refrigeration unit poorly ventilated and in close proximity to combustibles.

Walk-in not held at the proper temperature for food storage.

Improper organization of the walk-in or obstructions in the area around it, making it hard to service or clean. Read the rest of this entry »

What the Food Safety Bill Means for Restaurants

A growing number of food-borne illness outbreaks in recent years have scared consumers about everything from salad greens to peanut butter to eggs and spurred lawmakers into action — eventually. The Senate finally took the issue off the back burner this week, voting to approve a version of a bill passed by the House last year that’s designed to head off outbreaks rather than merely deal with them after the fact.

Food safety is uppermost in the minds of restaurant operators, whose reputations can suffer lasting damage when salmonella and E. coli outbreaks are tied to tainted ingredients they’ve served. The bill would finally give the FDA the power to order food product recalls when contamination is suspected, and would increase the agency’s authority to conduct multiple inspections of processing facilities where conditions might be ripe for food contamination. Read the rest of this entry »

Food Safety Reform Bill Passes U.S. Senate Panel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Senate committee voted unanimously on Wednesday to increase government oversight of food safety but the first significant overhaul in 50 years may not happen until 2010.

Pressure to overhaul the food safety system has grown following several high-profile outbreaks involving lettuce, peppers, peanuts and spinach since 2006 that have sickened thousands and killed several.

However, the full Senate probably won’t vote on the bill until 2010 as Congress is currently mired in debate about overhauling the U.S. healthcare system, said Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“I really, honestly, I just don’t see how we’ll get to it before Christmas,” Harkin said of the food safety bill.

The Senate bill would expand U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversight of the food supply and shift its focus toward preventing, rather than reacting, to foodborne outbreaks. FDA would have the power to order recalls, increase inspection rates and require all facilities to have a food safety plan. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Replace Walk-in Refrigerator Door Gaskets

The following article is courtesy of Tundra Specialties.

The rubber door gasket on the inside edge of the doors of all your refrigeration equipment is very important. It prevents cold air from escaping, which means the unit will stay colder longer and use less energy. Old gaskets wear out and lose their seal. Even worse, older gaskets can pose a food safety risk because they begin to collect grime and food bits and become a breeding ground for bacteria.

Luckily, it’s easy to replace door gaskets!  There are several different styles of gaskets. To insure you get the proper gasket, gather the following information:

1. Dimension of gasket – Measure from outside corner to outside corner for both height and width.

2. Manufacturer – Get the manufacturer’s name and the model and serial number of the piece of equipment (the serial number may not be needed).

3. Style –  Check to see if the gasket is magnetic or non-magnetic(compression). Almost all newer refrigeration equipment will have a magnetic gasket. A magnetic gasket will be hard and square at the point where it contacts the inside frame of the unit. Magnetic gaskets will also snap shut when you hold the door less than an inch from the frame because the magnet attracts to the metal.

Magnetic door gaskets are the most common.

Compression gaskets usually need a door latch to hold them tight in place to get a good seal. These gaskets are soft and compress easily at the point where they contact the inside frame of the unit.

A compression style door gasket.

Door gaskets are also categorized by how they attach to the door.  There are 3 ways a door gasket mounts on a door: snap in (or dart), push in, and screw in.
Read the rest of this entry »

Smart Defrost Kit for Walk-in Refrigeration

Make your refrigeration smart and save money by adding a Smart Defrost Kit (SDK) to your walk-in refrigeration system. SDK decreases the amount of defrost cycles in commercial walk-in refrigeration units by 30-40%. Typical electrical defrost refrigeration systems are scheduled to defrost at regular intervals, which is not always the most efficient or safe way. For applications where food safety is critical such as restaurants, convenience stores and grocery stores, the SDK works to protect perishable products as well as enables refrigeration systems to operate more efficiently, ultimately saving you money. All systems are different, which is why SDK takes time to study your system and helps decrease energy costs by keeping the box temperatures consistent. The SDK works by using temperature and pressure sensors to constantly monitor the system.

Click here for more information on Smart Defrost Kits.

Check out their savings calculator that demonstrates how much money you could save by installing a Smart Defrost Kit.