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food safety pillars

The food safety pillars is the system that effectively and efficiently manages the risk of causing food poisoning.

10 Basic Kitchen Hygiene Rules To Follow

10 Basic Kitchen Hygiene Rules To Follow

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Reading Time: 3 minutes

Kitchen hygiene during food preparation in the kitchen is essential to everyone’s health. Whether its at home, a commercial kitchen, catering, or a food factory. Kitchen hygiene forms the basis for any food safety system. 

What are the 10 Basic kitchen hygiene rules?

1. Keep your hand clean (Kitchen hygiene rule 101):

Keeping your hands clean and germ-free is at the top of the kitchen hygiene rules list. It’s easy for bacteria to be transferred from raw foods to your hands to everywhere else in the kitchen, so wash your hands throughout food prep and before and after cooking food. This also includes personal hygiene, meaning keeping fingernails short and clean. Clean and appropriate uniforms and fitness for work. 

2. Cook your foods to completion

One of the most important kitchen hygiene rules is to ensure food is cooked properly. If undercooked, harmful bacteria could lead to food poisoning. High temperatures (+70°C) are the best way to kill harmful bacteria such as E.coli, Salmonella, and Listeria monocytogenes. Keeping foods above 60°C during serving is also legally required. (R638)

3. Storing foods safely 

It is absolutely vital to store food properly to keep it safe from harmful bacteria, chemicals, and objects falling into food. In other words, preventing cross-contamination. This effectively means keeping raw foods away from foods that are ready to eat.  Make sure leftovers or open food packets are covered with cling film or sealed in a plastic container. Keep your fridge tidy and dispose of any items that are out of date.

You’ll need to store the various food groups in different different areas. This means you’ll need:

  • Sealable containers to keep dry goods in cupboards or on the shelves – such as pasta, rice, and flour
  • A fridge to keep your foods fresh for a long as possible.
  • A freezer to keep foods for longer periods of time. 

4. Clean-as-you-go 

Keeping kitchen counter tops and food equipment clean after every use is one of the easiest (and most essential) basic kitchen hygiene rules. You’ll not only be keeping things clean and tidy, you’ll be stopping the spread of bacteria. Using the correct chemicals here is also essential. Remember we cannot see bacteria. Regular cleaning and sanitising will ensure a clean and germ free environment. 

5. Kitchen hygiene rules: don’t cross-contaminate

If you’ve ever had food poisoning, you’ll understand why avoiding cross-contamination is high on the list of basic kitchen hygiene rules. Use different cutting boards for preparing fish, meat, veg, dairy, or bread (different colour boards can help with this), and never prepare or keep ready-to-eat foods near or next to raw meats and vegetables. These simple kitchen hygiene tips will help avoid the spread of potentially dangerous bacteria.

6. Cutting Boards are critical areas

Bits of food left on a cutting board will soon breed bacteria, so scrubbing down your board immediately after use is vital to stop them from spreading. Quick, easy, and essential, cleaning and sanitising cutting boards is one of the most essential kitchen hygiene rules.

7.Clean your fridge regularly

Ensuring your fridge is clean is one of the top 10 kitchen hygiene rules in t for good reason. Left alone, spills and spoiled food will spread bacteria to everything else, so clean out the fridge and dispose of expired food on a weekly basis. 

8. Basins need a clean too

Your wash and rinse basins are used regularly throughout the day, so it’ll become grimy and covered in bacteria quickly if it’s not kept clean. Again, this is one of those kitchen hygiene rules that doesn’t take much time, but that is well worth doing: just give your sink a quick scrub with a scourer and a spritz of cleaner and sanitiser once a day. 

9. Grease build-up is problematic

Greasy surfaces or pots and pans are able to prevent proper sanitising from taking place. Bacteria are able to hide behind greasy areas, allowing them to survive. Always clean with a clean cloth and multi-purpose cleaner to remove the greasy layer, before using a suitable surface sanitiser.  

10. Kitchen bins are germ havens

Regularly changing your bin is a key aspect of kitchen hygiene. Old food in a bin will soon decompose and bacteria will start to form. Not to mention the bad odours and on occasion the little white squirmy maggots! 

Pro tip: 

Food Handlers training

By law, food business operators must ensure that food handlers receive the appropriate training in kitchen hygiene and food safety, which is in line with the area they work in and will enable them to handle food in the safest way. 

The required training includes:

HOW to clean and sanitise cutting boards

How To Clean And Sanitise Cutting Boards In The Kitchen

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Cutting boards are by far the highest risk item in the kitchen due to almost all foods coming into contact with these items that some stage of the preparation process. Therefore, the cutting boards need their own special cleaning procedure.

There should be a three sink system in place where washing, rinsing and sanitising can take place. We have found in the industry that this is not often the case. And, therefore, we will focus on a  two sink system. This system covers washing, rinsing and sanitising.

  1. The wash and rinse basins should be filled with warm water at 45o C or above (114o F). This temperature is just cool enough to place your hands in the water without burning your hands.
  2. The basins should have an automated chemical dispenser for the manual detergent andsanitizer.
  3. This is the standard procedure for any manual washing that may take place, but because the cutting boards are so high-risk, additional steps are needed in order to ensure effective cleaning and sanitising.

What equipment will you need to clean & sanitise cutting boards?

Below is a list of equipment that you will need, other than the basic wash and rinse basin:

  1. Manual wash detergent.
  2. Suitable cleaning brush.
  3. Storage rack designed for cutting boards.
  4. Liquid sanitizers diluted in a spray bottle.

What are the cleaning steps for cutting boards?

  1. Remove excess dirt or soil.
  2. Add extra soap onto the cutting board.
  3. Scrub with a plastic bristled brush.
  4. Rinse off in the rinse water.
  5. Store in a drying rack.
  6. Spray evenly with a sanitiser*.

*Sanitiser

There are at least 3 methods that can be used to clean and sanitise the cutting boards.

These include :

  1. Spraying with a liquid sanitiser as discussed.
  2. Soaking in water and chlorine-based sanitising solution.
  3. Running through a dishwasher after scrubbing.

All methods are effective, however, in terms of efficiency, the use of the liquid sanitiser is best.

Preventing Food Contamination

The best way to prevent contamination from cutting boards:

  1. Buy hard acrylic (nylon) or rubber boards, as they are generally considered the most hygienic choice (these are commonly used in restaurant kitchens).
  2. Wooden boards should be kept as dry, clean and sanitised as possible.
  3. Consider using beeswax or mineral oil to treat the surface of wooden cutting boards every few months, to help form a natural seal against food contamination.
  4. Get colour-coded sets of cutting boards, or label your boards yourself, so that you remember which board is which.
  5. Throw away any chopping boards that are badly cracked, scratched and or visibly stained. Bacteria grow in the scratches and cracks. Like all kitchen equipment, cutting boards have a shelf-life and it’s vital that you get rid of old boards to maintain a safe, healthy kitchen.

Cutting Board Colours

Get a copy of the cutting board colour chart here.

Should I put my cutting board in the dishwasher to clean and sanitise them?

There are 2 main types of cutting boards that we discussed:

  1. Wooden
  2. Plastic (nylon)

Wooden cutting boards should never be placed in the dishwasher. This practise only speeds up the damage of these boards due to the moisture and heat from the machine. There are ways to clean and disinfect wooden boards. This is discussed in this article.

Plastic cutting boards can be “washed” in the dishwater, but only after scrubbing as described in this article.

What Oil Should I Use for My Wooden Cutting Board?

Uulki Natural Cutting Board Wax seems to be the best-rated mineral oil on the market.

Features include:

  1. Restores and protects – Made from natural, 100% plant-based oils and waxes – Nourishes wooden chopping boards, end grain butcher blocks and kitchen utensils and makes the surface water repellent
  2. Extends the lifetime of wood and bamboo – Regular use helps prevent drying, splitting and cracking
  3. For cutting boards, kitchen utensils, salad bowls, rolling pins, etc. made from wood or bamboo
  4. Great Smell – 100% plant-based / vegan & will not turn rancid – free from solvents and petroleum byproducts
  5. Made with love in Belgium – completely food safe

How Safe Are Cutting Boards?

Although cutting boards are high-risk. They can be safe to use if treated properly. This means knowing how to clean and sanitise the boards. As well as how to treat wooden boards.

What are the food safety pillars?

food safety pillars feature image

Why You Need To Understand The Food Safety Pillars

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

We can learn to implement the system by following the food safety pillars course on Udemy.com an introduction to hygiene and food safety.

In the food safety pillars course, you will learn the correct clean as you go procedure and why it is important to have  good cleaning and sanitising in place.

We will also look at how, why and when to wash your hands.

You will also learn why it is important to store raw and ready-to-eat food separately as well as the importance of the correct storage of dry goods.

You will also learn to understand why temperature control and the temperature danger zone is critical to food safety and lastly you will learn how to cool down food safely, how to defrost and reheat foods without causing potential risk to food poisoning.

The food safety pillars are the key elements in preventing food poisoning in the kitchen environment. Without these pillars, no foundation for safe food can be built.

  • Cleaning & Sanitising
    • The first step in creating a food safety system is the fundamental aspect of cleaning and sanitising.
  • Personal Hygiene
    • The second pillar is probably the most important in terms of eliminating cross-contamination. Hand washing and clean hands awareness are critical to food safety.
  • Food Storage
    • The third pillar can be categorised into two areas 
      • Perishable foods (Cold storage)
      • Dry goods
  • Temperature Control
    • The fourth pillar of food safety is a fundamental principle in preventing the growth of bacteria and ensuring the quality of food is maintained.
  • Food Handling
    • The fifth and final pillar of food safety related to how food is handled during storage and preparation. Food Handling carries the greatest risk when dealing with cross-contamination.

Food safety can only effectively be developed in three stages:

  1. Awareness
  2. Understanding
  3. Implementation

Creating Awareness in the kitchen is the first stage in developing a hygiene and food safety system.

Developing an understanding of food safety will help maintain a system organically and sustainably. Once, the above stages have been addressed, Implementation can take place.

The food safety pillars form the basis for a pre-requisite program for food safety systems such as:

  1. Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP)
  2. ISO 22000 (Food Safety Systems)
  3. BRC (British International Standard)

All too often, these systems are put into place without having a solid foundation

Using the food safety pillars, allows you to:

  1. Identify potential risks
  2. Assess the risks according to critical, major & minor
  3. Understand the basic requirements for a food safety management system
  4. Work according to the food safety pillars
  5. Train others in the awareness of food safety

Check out the next post on the cleaning & sanitising pillar. Or go straight to cleaning and sanitising cutting boards. For more information on the food safety pillars check the ebook on Amazon. If you would like to learn more about Hygiene Food Safety Subscribe to the blog. Want to get your question answered and featured on our site? Head on to our FAQs page and fill in the questions form.