Every business owner operating a commercial kitchen has a duty to ensure public health and employee safety. In fact, customers who get sick from dining in your place of business will likely never return and may even have the opportunity to sue. The same is true when customers or employees slip on improperly cleaned floors. While insurance policies will cover most legal challenges, you do not want to waste time and energy defending your business or risk losing customers. Careful attention to kitchen sanitation will help you avoid the majority of this trouble.
Kitchen Cleanliness Issues
By their very nature, commercial restaurants tend to generate large amounts of soils that contain organic matter and grease. If not cleaned properly, this creates a potentially unheralthy situation and a dangerously slick one too. In fact, according to Employers, a main cause for accidents in the kitchen is employee slips and falls. Clearly, sanitation practices impact both employee safety and the health of customers you are serving. Unfortunately, traditional cleaning systems that use mops often transfer contaminants from the restroom to the kitchen as well as the front of house, where customers eat and waitstaff serves food. Mops spread soils from one part of the kitchen floor to another. If there are pollutants in any of these areas, the problem often gets worse with mopping.
Educating employees about food safety, directing employees to sanitize hands during service, and providing touch-free soap dispensers and hand dryers will help establish quality cleanliness practices. However, kitchen sanitation requires a formalized process that physically removes contaminants and grease to help prevent food from being contaminated as well as disease transfer from staff to your customers. These illnesses can create major headaches for administrative staff and legal departments as well as lead to loss of business.
Liabilities Business Owners Must Confront
Many of the liabilities business owners face are practical concerns. For example, if multiple customers have gotten sick from meals consumed at your establishment, you may find your business shut down until the local health officials conduct an investigation. Should the authorities find violations in sanitary procedures, they will fine your company and possibly revoke your license to operate.
These situations are extreme, but foodborne illnesses traced back to your employees and lack of kitchen cleanliness may provide the ground for a winning lawsuit. Even though your business insurance will cover most claims, you face rising insurance premiums when claims are filed.
Of course, your business's reputation suffers greatly from these events. Once news travels of infections and illnesses originating in your company kitchens, the public becomes hesitant about coming back to operations linked to foodborne illness. In big markets such as New York, the New York Times notes that bad sanitation practices lead to poor "grades" that appear in restaurant windows. Potential customers walking by see these grades before they even enter the restaurant.
Business owners face a number of liabilities in everyday operations, not to mention the risk of losing business on several levels. Kitchen cleaning staff must prevent the spread of contaminants by removing the pollutants rather than spreading them through mops. To reduce the risk of lost business and legal troubles, strict kitchen cleanliness is essential.
To learn more about Kaivac systems, contact the company.
Related Topics
Related Products
KaiVac 1250 No-Touch Cleaning® SystemWhen it comes to restrooms and other heavily soiled areas, nothing beats Spray-and-Vac cleaning. Kaivac's No-Touch Cleaning systems are built for extreme soil removal, empowering workers to clean hygienically without touching contaminated surfaces. Plus, it cuts labor, chemical and equipment costs. Achieving great, consistent results is easy with these patented systems. Simply apply automatically diluted cleaning solution to fixtures and floors in a low pressure fan spray, and then rinse surfaces and floors with always-fresh, clean water. The built-in power of the indoor pressure washer flushes soils out of grout lines and tight places that mops can't reach. Finally, just vacuum the floor dry -- completely removing soils, moisture and contaminants from all surfaces, grout lines and crevices, leaving the floor virtually dry and soil free. The Kaivac 1250 is ideal for smaller areas. It boasts a 12 gallon fresh water and a 12 gallon recovery tank. The system is powered by a 500 p.s.i. pump and a powerful 3-stage wet/dry vacuum.
SystemSURE PLUS™ ATP Measurement System (ATP Meter)Kaivac delivers the industry's first turnkey cleaning delivery and measurement program by combining the soil and microbial removal capabilities of its patented No-Touch Cleaning® systems with the rapid detection capabilities of the SystemSURE PLUS ATP Measurement System (ATP meter).
KaiPow™ DegreaserKaiPow is a general purpose degreaser that rapidly penetrates oils, greases, fats, and soils. KaiPow is perfect for food service, food processing and industrial applications where stubborn, greasy soils are prevalent. Like all Kaivac chemicals, KaiPow is designed specifically for use with our wet vacuum systems. Too often, users simply apply common cleaning detergents or mop soaps when cleaning and then carelessly vacuum them up. This is like pouring standard dish soap into an automatic dish washer. The result is predictable - extreme foaming, filling the vacuum tank with useless suds and causing premature shut-off. Worse, the excess foam has the potential to damage the vacuum motor. We are so confident in the performance and suitability of our chemicals that we extend our equipment warranty to customers who use them exclusively. Now also available in 8 oz. preportioned packets
OmniFlex™ Dispense-and-VacThe OmniFlex Dispense-and-Vac system offers a simple, fast approach to cleaner, safer floors. Its extreme cleaning capabilities achieve hygienic results in even the heaviest soil and grease conditions. In fact, like most Kaivac systems, it's up to 60 times better at removing soil and contaminants than mopping. That makes the Dispense-and-Vac is perfect for food service establishments, industrial facilities, light duty public restrooms and much more. Just apply fresh cleaning solution to the floor, spread and lightly brush into grout lines, and then completely vacuum away all soils and liquid, leaving floors really clean and bone dry. It's perfect for daily cleaning and degreasing of commercial floors. It's also great for applying and removing stripper on finished floors. The process is radically better, faster and safer than cleaning with a mop.
Click here to see the compact Space Saver Dispense-and-Vac model
