Kitchen Safety Tips For The Holidays
It might be a uniquely busy time – in fact, it definitely is – but the holiday season is no time to skimp on safety. Why not invest more in making sure that everything that goes on in your kitchen happens without accidents and injuries? Take advantage of these kitchen safety rules to create a better environment for your staff, and benefit from common-sense safety precautions for cooking in a commercial kitchen.
Buying Non-Slip Mats
One cheap and easy way to increase safety in your kitchen is to invest in a set of non-slip mats for high-traffic areas. With these in place, as your busy chefs, prep staff, line cooks and others congregate around various food stations, they won't be falling on the floor when rounding tough corners or moving with pots and pans at full speed. These “grippy” mats do more than just look good! They drive productivity by allowing people to move more quickly and with more agility. As our people, who have actual restaurant experience, will tell you: cooking is actually a physical job!
Ventilation and Insect Control
Another great set of professional kitchen rules for safety involves having the right ventilation for your indoor environment. With a few simple additions, it's possible to have better ventilation, without sacrificing the sanitation of your kitchen environment. First, you have the choice of either air doors or strip curtains for sectioning off kitchen areas. Either of these is going to ventilate much better than a solid door. Air doors, in particular, are effective at keeping most insects out of the kitchen area and keeping warm or cold air from escaping. If you go with strip curtains, you can also use various kinds of fly traps to achieve your pest control objectives. We recommend choosing Curtron Air Curtain.
Enhancing Fire Safety
Having the right gear in place ensures that a sudden grease fire or other conflagration will not put your staff in peril. Things like fire extinguishers and fire alarms are important in any building, but especially in a restaurant kitchen, where high heat and flame are the norm. Don’t wait for someone to recommend more fire safety gear! It’s a straightforward thing that you can do to lower risk in a dramatic way, regardless of whether you have ever seen something in your kitchen catch fire before.
Installing Helpful Signage
Signage is an important part of safety, and it’s crucial for instructing staff on how to work safely in restaurant environments. This may consist of chemical sheet information, fire safety information, coronavirus information, and more. Make sure that signage is in all applicable languages for your staff, so that everyone's on the same page about safe kitchen operations, and review your training practices every year or so for a more consistent safety approach.
Teach Correct Cleaning Techniques
Here's another big tip for restaurant managers – get your cleaning regimen down, and train everyone on how it works. It's unfortunate that too often, a restaurant has inappropriate bleach storage or dangerous chemicals out with food. Health inspectors are sure to catch that. With all of the above safety tips, you'll be giving your cooking crews a better holiday experience as they go about creating those prize plates for diners.
