Establish a cleaning routine for tables as they turn over

 

First impressions are important, you don't want to give your Customers the wrong impression because your tables haven't been bused or your Restaurant is not clean.  Restaurants can get hectic, especially during peak service periods. Protect your guests and maintain a polished image by creating a front-of-house routine for cleaning tables and other food contact surfaces. Here are some tips for turning your plan into action:

• Select the right cleaning and sanitizing tools. Some establishments treat front-of-house surfaces by applying cleaning and sanitizing solutions, stored in designated buckets or Spray Bottle Solutions, to disposable towels. Others choose to use pretreated cleaning and sanitizing wipes. Pick the method that works for you.
• Reduce cross-contamination threats. Designate particular tools, such as a bucket of sanitizer, specifically for food contact surfaces; that bucket should not also be utilized in the cleaning of the trash area, which is not considered a food contact surface. Clearly labeling your tools and using disposable towels or wipes can curtail germ spread.
• Assign roles. During employee onboarding training, show employees your cleaning and sanitizing processes for front-of-house surfaces. Answer any questions they may have. Specify cleaning responsibilities for each staff role and your expectations regarding cleaning frequency. Food code requires establishments to clean and sanitize food contact surfaces after each use.
• Conduct ongoing reviews and training. Ensure employees conduct these procedures correctly and consistently; implement ongoing training and demonstrations specific to cleaning and sanitizing.

Strange Food Trends of 2015

     A lot happened in 2015.  In 2015 we saw a lot of stories, fittingly, about food. From new inventions like caffeinated peanut butter and chocolate slices, to new-to-us concepts like eating bugs, and strange food-preparation methods like making soup in a Keurig and eating at a restaurant without human workers, the foods of 2015 felt like they came straight out of the future.

     From the crazy (24-karat gold Kit Kats) to the depressing (Norovirus at Chipotle) to the completely bizarre (FATwater) in 2015, it can’t help but feel like we saw it all. Maybe all this food news means we can come away from the year with a heightened sense of awareness about our food supply, or maybe it just means, as a culture, we have finally taken our food obsession too far. But whatever we decide to take away from this year’s food inventions, let us not forget the highs and lows that brought us here, to the end of the journey of our crazy edible year.

Caffeinated peanut butter

Coffee and peanut butter are, to me, two good things that do not need fixing. Yet caffeinated peanut butter, otherwise known as STEEM, is doing just that. The food fusion aims at “providing a consistent release of sustained energy” through the naturally slow digestion of peanut butter. STEEM’s mission is to free you from the humanly distractions of hunger and fatigue in one convenient jar. And a lot of people got very excited about this when STEEM first came out, because apparently we have become too busy to be expected to drink coffee and eat breakfast at the same time. The whole sentiment seems kind of depressing, like we are eventually going to get to a place where we stop enjoying food entirely and sustain ourselves off grey scientific nutrient paste. Wait, that already happened last year…

Chocolate slices

These are really amazing and it’s hard to believe it took us this long to figure it out. And unlike chocolate spreads, you don’t even need to dirty a knife. Chocolate slices make you realize that anything really is possible, all while wondering what other foods we’re missing out on by not slicing… Anyone?

Activated Charcoal Juice

While 2015 saw no shortage of cold-pressed juiceries, this year we saw liquid bottles of inky black activated charcoal slowly start to replace 2014’s vision of quintessential health: the green juice. Activated charcoal has been traditionally used in medicine to treat poisonings due to its ability to prevent the absorption of chemicals inside the body. Today the juice world touts activated charcoal as the latest answer in our never-ending quest to rid the body of those pesky every day toxins that we seem unable to escape… until now?

Hangover curing salami

Serious Pig, a London-based craft meat business introduced the world to its first hangover curing salami this year. The salami allegedly works as a preventative measure and is supposed to be eaten while you’re still drinking. It boasts ginger and chili to combat the two common hangover symptoms of nausea and fatigue, and is appropriately called Hangover Cured. Ginger is known to help with nausea, and chilli is an endorphin booster, meaning that while there is no scientific evidence to Hangover Cured, eating some when you’ve had one too many could make you feel a little better in the morning. 

Bugs

Otherwise known as “the protein of the future,” TIME Magazine called eating bugs a food trend of 2015, and they weren’t wrong. While in 2014 we heard a lot of talk of eating bugs, the discussions were mostly centered around how gross and unrealistic the eating bugs would be. But in 2015, as we begun to better understand the meat industry’s impact on the environment, we watched bugs mature into a serious, sustainable food option. Gourmet bug recipe books and inventions like cricket flour and cricket chips helped some move past the creepy crawly factor, and we realized over two billion people around the world already consider bugs a dietary staple.

Super-elaborate milkshakes

Want a milkshake as big as your head and absolutely stuffed with all kinds of sweet goodies? I mean, who doesn’t. That’s why a tiny cafe in Australia called Patissez went crazy viral with pictures of their fully wonderful, if a tad over-the-top, milkshake creations. I mean, look at them!

Savory yogurt

Chef Dan Barber’s family farm in the Berkshires Blue Hill Farms, which supplies produce for Chef Barber’s famous farm-to table restaurants in New York City and Pocantico Hills, New York, brought savoury yogurt to our attention in 2015. Available in seasonal flavors like butternut squash, carrot, tomato, and beet, Blue Hill Farm’s savory yogurts turned Americans onto the idea that yogurt doesn’t have to be sweet. Chef Dan Barber is a long-time food environmentalist pioneer, and author of The Third Plate where he also argues eating less meat could help the environment. It seems Barber has his fingerprints all over the food trends of 2015.

24-karat gold Kit Kats

Nestle Japan’s Kit Kat Chocolatory sold its 1 millionth chocolate bar this year and released edible gold-plated Kit Kats to celebrate, giving us a real life Wonka experience.

Burger King’s black burger

Burger King’s infamous black burger, which originally launched in Japan, came to America this year just in time for Halloween. The charcoal burger was an intriguing mix of terrifying and exciting until we found out the dye used to turn the bun black caused people who ate the burger to poop green. Then it was just terrifying.

Keurig soup

You can now make chicken noodle soup in your coffee-making Keurig machine and I’m not sure we will ever recover from this. After the world realized how horrible Keurig’s K-cups are for the environment, the company had a horrible year sales-wise, eventually leading it to partner with Campbell’s in hopes of boosting sales by revitalizing their brand to include soup. Campbell’s marketing director Michael Goodman declared the innovation a “winning idea.” Time will tell if the people agree.

FATwater

FATwater is a 20 calories water beverage with two grams of medium chain triglyceride fat derived from coconut oil per serving. It was invented by the founder of Bulletproof Coffee, you know, the trend that has everyone adding butter and oil to their coffee in hopes of losing weight? FATwater bills itself as a type of sports drinks. But instead of the immediate energy boost you get from other sugary sports drinks, FATwater aims at providing sustainable energy that doesn’t cause you to crash, claiming to also be “more hydrating” than regular water. But some researchers have disagreed with FATwater’s claims, stating that the type of fat in FATwater doesn’t actually give drinkers any energy at all, and that water hydrates the body on its own just fine. That’s a relief, because at $35.95 for a 12-pack, switching to FATwater won’t come cheap.

Automats

While self-serve kiosks have been slowly creeping into fast food restaurants for a while, 2015 saw an entirely different type of service: no human workers. Restaurants with no visible human help are called automats, and began popping up in America in 2015. San Francisco saw its first automat in the form of Eatsa, a healthy fast-food eatery with no cashiers or wait staff, requiring customers to place orders on tablets and receive their food at self-serve cubbies. Some claimed the rise of automats is linked to the pressure to increase fast-food worker’s wages, but companies like McDonalds and Panera, who are starting to implement self-serve kiosks of their own, denied the two are related, claiming the new digitized workforce will allow them to have a bigger workforce in the kitchen. But some have prophesized that robots will soon be able to assemble food orders themselves. Either way, one thing is clear: the future is most certainly now.

 

Foodservice Trends in 2015

     What's the newest Trends in Foodservice?  Number One is Ethnic Cuisine, Foodies are craving foreign flavors and spices and will pay top dollar too!  Try an appetizer of something Exotic or perhaps highlight something on your Specials and see how it goes before adding it as a permanent dish. 

     Ever hear of an "Ugly" fruit or vegetable?  Ugly fruit and vegetables were all the rage in France last summer? Well, they’re here in America. They’ve actually been here this whole time — just not on most people’s plates, nor in supermarket aisles. A new Oakland-based startup called Imperfect is out to change that. Its founders, three veteran food-waste entrepreneurs, are on a mission to bring ugly produce (they prefer the term “cosmetically challenged”) to, quite literally, your doorstep.  “Our bold vision is for consumers across America to have the option of having a box of Imperfect produce delivered to them weekly, for 30 to 50 percent cheaper than what they’ll find in grocery stores,” said Ben Simon, Imperfect’s cofounder. 

     Seasonal Sour items such as the Lemon and Key Lime are making a Summer splash and not just in Desserts.  Try making a Chicken or Fish dish with Lime instead of Lemon with some fresh herbs!

     Local Sourcing is still a big Trend in 2015.  Chef's are sourcing ingredients from local farms and highlighting on their Menus.  Consumers are enjoying knowing where their food comes from and selecting Menu items that state local sourcing.  China and Flatware are also reflecting a new Rustic feel and image.

     Allergens and Cross-contamination are still a big concern for Foodservice.  Gluten-free, Peanut and Fish allergies are on the radar for Food Prep and Service. 

 

Be Careful about Food Safety

     How many times have you said, “It must have been something I ate.”  That’s the typical statement when a person develops some relatively minor symptoms from food.  Maybe not severe enough to go to the doctor so you choose to tough it out without medical care.  Sudden onset of flu-like symptoms such as onset of stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and fever could possibly mean you are the victim of a foodborne illness.   The illness is sometimes referred to as “food poisoning”, but it’s often misdiagnosed.

 

     Who’s the Culprit? Foodborne illness has occurred when you are sick from eating food that has been contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, or fungi.  Causes of the symptoms vary greatly, but it’s help to know that misinformation exists via the customer route, the food service managers and crew, and even the medical professionals (if they haven’t had much specific training about foodborne illness).
     The Best Investigators –In the food service industry, we never want to get a call from a customer with a foodborne illness claim.  Prevention of such an incident is what food safety is all about.   If the restaurant manager does get a call, you need to take it seriously and record the facts from the customer for further investigation.  Many times the consumer does an incorrect self-diagnosis based upon the last meal that they ate at a restaurant – never from food out of their own refrigerator or from a meal eaten days before the illness symptoms show up.  Health department professionals trained in food protection are the best source of helping to correctly diagnose a foodborne illness (contacted as soon as possible), provided the consumer has also contacted their doctor if they have acute symptoms.

The Common Foodborne Illness Myths:

1. Myth: Foodborne illness is caused by the last meal or food item eaten.
FACT:  Foodborne illness can be caused by foods eaten a few hours to several days prior to your illness.   A graphic point is that when symptoms show up, for example vomiting, you would throw up the last meal you ate, even though that is not the food that made you sick.  In the case of the Hepatitis A virus, you may not have symptoms for up to 50 days.  Can you remember what you ate for every meal up to a week ago, much less 50 days?  It’s a tough task.

2. Myth:  Foodborne illness is caused by eating foods from restaurants.
FACT:  Bacteria and other pathogens (germs) can live and multiply in both the home and restaurant kitchens.  Foodborne viruses are the very tiny hitchhikers that travel via fingertips and sometimes are airborne. Foods can be contaminated on counters, sinks, cutting boards, utensils, or via hands, resulting in a cause known as “cross-contamination”.

3. Myth:  Foodborne illness is caused by food that has “gone bad”.
FACT:  This is seldom the cause of foodborne illnesses.  You CANNOT see, taste, or smell the food poisoning organisms in the food.  Foodborne illness is usually caused by food becoming contaminated from the food preparers hands not being properly washed, incorrect time and temperature control, poor food handling practices, and unsafe preparation methods.

4. Myth:  It must have been the mayonnaise that made me sick.  It was not refrigerated.
FACT:  Commercial mayonnaise and most bottled salad dressings are what we call “acidified foods”.  They are safe at room temperature even after opening, although most restaurants and the manufacturer want them refrigerated to preserve the freshest flavor.  Mayo and salad dressings have an acid level low enough that they do not support growth of microorganisms, unless they are heavily contaminated by a dirty utensil or mixed with other foods changing the acidity level of the mixture (such as in potato salad).  Mayo all by itself and unrefrigerated is perfectly safe.

5. Myth:  Foodborne illness is easily diagnosed.
FACT:  In order to make an accurate diagnosis, the ill person must give a history of the symptoms and the foods eaten within the last three days.  A stool specimen is the most telling clinical sample and should be collected from the victim for lab testing to identify the organism.  Other samples to be collected might be emesis (vomit), the suspect foods from the restaurant or home kitchen, any leftover food from the suspect meal, and sterile swabs of equipment or food workers skin or nasal passage.  These samples are now like a fingerprint and organisms can be matched to one another or to other victims in many cases.  On a more positive note for food service, they can also be used to clear a restaurant of being the cause.  Viral foodborne outbreaks, such as the #1 leading foodborne enemy, the “Norovirus”, are also tougher to diagnose than bacterial illnesses and have an incubation time of 24 to 48 hours before the victim has symptoms.  Infection rate for Norovirus is high, but is sometimes not reported so continues to spread.

6. Myth:  All foodborne illnesses are the same
FACT: Foodborne illness is caused by many different organisms. For example, “Salmonella” has approximately 2000 identified types.  The organism determines how long it takes for illness to occur, signs, symptoms and duration of the illness. The illness can vary from mild flu-like symptoms to very serious illness or even death if the victim is a high risk individual (children, elderly, pregnant women, people who are immune compromised or on certain medications).