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As a food protection manager, you have a responsibility to oversee food safety throughout the entire process. This is where HACCP becomes relevant.

HACCP stands for “Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point.” The FDA defines this as “a management system in which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement and handling, to manufacturing, distribution and consumption of the finished product.”

HACCP helps coordinate and manage the flow of food through the entire processing cycle.

While developing an HACCP plan may seem like a daunting task, here are the 7 formal principles of an HACCP plan.

Conduct a hazard analysis

First, start by brainstorming potential hazards. Develop a list of hazards that could cause injury or illness if not controlled. These can be biological, physical, or chemical. The second phase of this principle is to determine which or the hazards listed should be included in the HACCP plan, based off the level of severity the potential hazard and how likely it is to occur.

Determine critical control points

Find out which control points can be used to neutralize the hazard’s threat. The most common example in restaurants is temperature control, such as properly chilling food and cooking food to it’s recommended internal temperature. Determine the critical control points for each hazard.

Establish critical limits

Building off the last principle, the next step is to establish critical limits. What is the maximum and/or minimum values needed to reduce or eliminate the risk of a food safety hazard? Going off of our previous example of temperature control, what is the minimum internal cooking temperature needed to reduce the bacteria to a safe level? Again, establish critical limits for each hazard.

Establish monitoring procedures

Now that you know the critical control points and the critical limits, it’s time to establish a monitoring procedure to ensure the critical limits are met. For our temperature control example, this could be using a thermometer to check the internal cooking temperature.

Monitoring procedures need to be conducted on a regular basis to ensure that critical limits are being met.

Establish corrective actions

The next step of developing an HACCP plan is to figure out what corrective actions should be conducted if critical limits are not met. In other words, what should be done to avoid a food safety hazard? The plan should also specify who should perform the corrective action so that there is no confusion, and so it will get done.

Establish verification procedures

This principle involves verifying whether the HACCP plan is valid. This includes making sure the plan is being followed, and that it is scientifically and technically sound.

Establish record-keeping and documentation procedures

I final step is to be sure to document your HACCP plan and keep records of its execution.

If you want a more comprehensive guide on developing your HACCP plan, the USDA has a comprehensive step-by-step guide to the process.

Looking to learn more about food safety so that you can better develop your HACCP plan? Check out our Food Protection Manager, Food Handler, and Allergen Awareness trainings.

Make food safety part of your patient care.

Your patient population is made up of those with a high-risk of contracting a serious foodborne illness if food safety procedures are not followed.

High-risk groups include:

• Elderly people
• Children under 5
• Pregnant women
• Weakened immune system due to illness or radiation therapy

This means you need to be diligent with your food safety to protect the health of your patients.

Here are the most important things to do when it comes to food safety in a healthcare facility.

Have A Plan

In any food establishment, having a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan is important. Note any possible hazards and critical control points and make a plan to preserve your food correctly, then follow it.

Follow Food Safety Basics

Follow the most important food safety practices, such as time and temperature control, personal hygiene, and preventing cross contamination.

We rounded up some of the most important ones in another blog post.

Keep Up to Date on Training

Protect your facility’s patients by keeping your staff up to date on their food safety training.

Implement continuous training into your program to keep food safety knowledge fresh in employee’s minds.

Looking for food safety training for your hospital staff? Check out our Food Protection Manager, Food Handler, and Allergen Awareness courses.

By Janet Campbell

As a new restaurant owner, you already know that rising food prices are a problem. However, there are many ways to save money on operational costs that won’t impact quality. From closing your brick-and-mortar location to saving on your taxes, the following tips can help you keep your finances intact so you’ll have the money available to grow when the time is right.

Make food safety a priority.

One of the best ways to save money is to simply ensure that all the food you serve is fresh. This both reduces food waste and keeps your customers safe. The Always Safe Company offers training for food handlers that covers everything from food safety and the law to allergens and how to ensure that your food is at the right temperature all the time.

Consider a food truck or delivery-based food service.

If you’re currently considering opening up a storefront and money is tight, take a moment to determine if this is actually the right choice. As DoorDash explains, there is a huge demand for convenience and nine out of 10 people look for restaurants online first. This means that even if you have an eat-in establishment, your customers will find you online, and offering delivery is a smart move. When you prefer to be face-to-face with your customers, opening a food truck or kiosk is an affordable option.

Reduce your menu offerings.

Although it might sound counterintuitive, offering less can actually be more valuable to your customers. When you have fewer menu options, you’ll save on labor costs, simplify training, and, importantly, help your customers have a better understanding of your restaurant’s concept. A smaller menu is more efficient and, as TouchBistro explains, makes it easier to order online. This is also an excellent way to further reduce food waste.

Save on taxes.

No matter how large or small your business, you have to pay taxes. But, you may be able to reduce some of your tax liability while protecting your personal assets by establishing your legal business structure. Fortunately, if you’re planning to file as an LLC, Minnesota makes it easy by letting you do this online, skipping the attorney fees. You’ll want to do your research first, however, to find out how this flexible business structure can actually help you grow.

Pay your staff more than the competition.

Whether you file as an LLC or not, your business structure also determines how you pay your staff. And, if you can save money by streamlining, you can afford to pay your staff more than your next best competitor. Remember, employee turnover costs you money, so pay them well and treat them even better.

Participate in food festivals.

No matter where you live, there is a food festival near you just about every season. These events help you reach out to your community to show them exactly what you offer. If your business is already accustomed to making large batches (and following proper safety protocols) then opening a pop-up at a local food fair or vendor event can get you great exposure for a fairly reasonable cost. You can take your easiest-to-prepare and most popular food offerings as a teaser to bring people through your doors or to your online ordering portal.

Look for low-interest lending or grants.

Many small restaurants are launched purely with the owner’s personal savings as capital. But, there are many different ways to find financing, including traditional bank loans, a merchant cash advance, or crowdfunding. No matter what avenue you choose, make sure that you get a fair interest rate and that you do not borrow more than you can pay back.

All small businesses cost money, and your restaurant is no different. But, what is different about opening a food service company is that food is your biggest expense. The above tips can help you offer the best quality and dining experience while still earning a profit.

The Always Food Safe Company was founded in 2016 and offers a range of training services to help restaurant owners and employees reduce foodborne illnesses.

Anyone can acquire a foodborne illness. However, some groups of people are just more susceptible to foodborne illnesses due to a compromised immune system.

The following are the four groups that the CDC lists as at a higher risk for foodborne illnesses.

Adults aged 65 or older

Adults ages 65 or older are more likely to have more severe symptoms when contracting a foodborne illness and are more at risk of hospitalization or death.

Children younger than 5 years

Children under the age of 5 are still developing their immune systems, meaning that it is easier for children to get sick.

Immunocompromised

Certain health problems can lead to a weakened immune system, making it harder for their body to fight off sickness, including foodborne illnesses.

These include, along with others:

•        Cancer patients going through treatment
•        Diabetes
•        HIV or AIDS
•        Transplant Recipients
•        Autoimmune Disease

Pregnant women

Pregnancy changes the immune system, putting the baby at an increased risk for foodborne illnesses.

Foodborne illnesses symptoms can be worse during pregnancy, and could possibly lead to miscarriage, premature labor, and issues with the babies development.

Preventing Foodborne Illnesses in These Groups

When working with these groups, it is important to follow safe food handling practices, such as washing your hands and temperature control.

To get even more insights on how to protect these vulnerable groups from foodborne illnesses, check out our Food Protection Manager, Food Handler, and Allergen Awareness courses.

Food safety isn’t just for the kitchen.

Keeping the front of your restaurant clean seems like a given, considering a dirty restaurant can scare off customers. And while presentation is important, you might not know how important having a clean front of house is when it comes to preventing cross-contamination.

Here are some best practices when it comes to keeping a clean and safe front-of-house.

Properly set the table

You might not have thought this was a food safety risk, but it can be when it comes to cross-contamination from your hands. Be sure to properly wash your hands and use the following tips:

• Only hold silverware by handles
• Never touch the rim of a glass; always hold by the middle or bottom
• Always hold plates from underneath

Clean where people touch

It’s important to clean and sanitize the table after use, but there are a few other things that you may not think of but are touched very frequently. These include laminated menus and electronic ordering systems. Just think about how much these are touched throughout the day, and how high of a risk for cross-contamination this can become.

So, if applicable, when cleaning off a table after use, take the time to sanitize the menu and electronic ordering system as well.

Clean off your bar area

This area can be overlooked, but throughout the day, people are eating and spilling drinks on the bar area. Be sure to sanitize the counter throughout the day, and properly clean any spills—which leads us to our next point.

Properly clean spills up

Throughout the day. There will be spills. Use a wiping cloth to clean and sanitize these. But remember, be sure to do a proper cleaning and sanitizing at the end of the day.

Follow buffet best practices

Having a buffet can be hard to navigate when it comes to food safety. We have a whole blog article discussing how to safely run a buffet.

Here are the main points from that article:

• Track temperatures and keep food out of the temperature danger zone
• Have only one utensil per food item
• Watch out for customers cross-contaminating food.
• Monitor and switch out food if necessary

These are just a couple of the ways to keep your front of house germ-free and your customers protected. For more food safety information, check out our Food Protection Manager, Allergen Awareness, and Food Handler training.

The state of Virginia has updated their Food Regulations to include changes to the FDA’s 2017 Food Code.

One important change to note comes from section 12VAC5-421-55, where it now states that the Person in Charge (PIC) must be a Certified Food Protection Manager (CFPM).

But what does this mean for you?

In Virginia, a PIC is required to be on the premises during all hours of operation. This change means that every PIC should have their Food Protection Manager Certification, so at least one person must be a CFPM during all hours of operation.

This change will be enforced starting June 24, 2023.

Until this date, at least one PIC on staff must be a CFPM.

Although this new requirement will not be enforced for over a year, it might be useful to get a head start on getting staff their Food Protection Manager Certification.

Looking for Certified Food Protection Manager training to fulfill this new requirement? Always Food Safe’s Food Manager training will fill this requirement. Learn more about our CFPM training.

Food safety is vital to operating any restaurant, and it is especially important when it comes to buffets.

Buffets and self-service areas can be a food safety challenge, with many things that could go wrong—from temperature abuse to cross-contamination.

Here are the most important things to remember when operating a self-service food area.

Keep food out of the temperature danger zone

One of the challenges of buffets is keeping food out of the temperature danger zone. As a food handler or manager, it is your job to ensure that hot food is held at a minimum of 135°F, and that cold food is kept at a temperature no higher than 41°F.

Have only one serving utensil per food item

There are two different reasons to use separate utensils. The first is to prevent cross-contamination between foods, especially raw and ready-to-eat foods. Having the same utensils can cause harmful pathogens to transfer between foods.

The other reason is to prevent allergen cross-contact. When a serving utensil is used for different foods, the proteins from an allergen can transfer between them. To prevent an allergic reaction from happening in your restaurant, be sure each food has their own serving utensil.

Monitor self-service areas

Any area where guests are plating their own food need to be monitored to ensure that there are no food safety issues.

Check the temperatures

To prevent temperature abuse, you should be checking the temperatures of the food consistently. If any food has been sitting in the temperature danger zone for too long, you should discard and replace it.

Switch out food and utensils if necessary

You can’t control what your guests will do, which is why you should keep an eye on the self-service area.

If you see someone using the same utensil for multiple different foods, switch out those foods with fresh ones and discard the contaminated ones. Also supply a new, clean and sanitized utensil for each food.

Another thing to watch out for is guests using their hands to pick up food. If this happens, discard any food they touched and replace it to prevent cross-contamination.

Buffets are not the only area of food safety you should worry about. To learn more about safely operating a foodservice business, check out our Food Handler, Allergen Awareness, and Food Protection Manager courses.

The FDA, as part of their new era of smarter food safety, has released their Foodborne Outbreak Response Improvement Plan (FORIP). They seek to enhance the speed, effectiveness, coordination, and communication of outbreak investigations.

In the United States, tracking foodborne illness outbreaks involves many different states and jurisdictions. With the FORIP, the FDA hopes to make this process even more efficient to prevent the outbreak from spreading further, and to prevent similar outbreaks from happening in the future.

FORIP focuses on four different areas:

• Tech-enabled product traceback—Digitizing the traceback process
• Root cause investigations—Conducting timely root cause investigations and expediting process of getting any necessary public health information out there to prevent the situation from happening again
• Analysis and dissemination of outbreak data—Strengthening analysis of outbreak data and share this with other regulatory partners
• Operational improvements—Improving operations for root cause investigations, product tracing, and distribution of outbreak data

With these improvements, the FDA will be better equipped to respond to foodborne outbreaks, helping to prevent future foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States

For more information and specifics on this new plan, read about it  on the FDA’s Website.

We all know by now how important food safety training is to a successful restaurant, but good training goes beyond onboarding.

You may think that continuous training is a waste of time, but in reality, there are a number of benefits, including increasing job retention, keeping up with new regulations, and keeping employees better informed so that food safety mistakes are not made.

Here are just some of the many benefits of implementing continuous training at your restaurant.

Keeps Up With New Regulations

Food safety is constantly changing and evolving, so it is important to stay up to date on the latest food safety rules and regulations.

Make it a point to keep up with the current food code. When there are changes, have a way to communicate these changes to employees.

Keeps Knowledge Fresh

Employees will have forgotten 90% of their training in 6 months. If employees aren’t using the information on a regular basis, they are at risk of forgetting it.

Continuous training reminds employees of the information they may have forgotten and keeps knowledge fresh.

That’s why food safety training has to be repeated every few years. In the meantime, you can help employees retain their food safety knowledge with training refreshers, such as these short recap videos.

Increases Employee Satisfaction and Job Retention

The restaurant industry turnover rates have been historically high.

Forbes’ research found that 28% of all employees who quit within the first 90-120 days of employment do so due to a lack of training and support. That’s because proper training can make employees feel valued and see potential within their job.

Onboarding training is important to keeping new hires on, and implementing continuous training helps increase employee satisfaction overtime, leading to lower turnover rates.

Creates a Food Safety Culture

At Always Food Safe, we talk about creating a culture of food safety. Implementing continuous training helps achieve this by making food safety the norm and bringing it to the forefront of people’s attention.

Making food safety a part of company culture will ensure that proper food safety procedures are being followed, reducing the risk of foodborne illnesses arising and in turn keeping everything running smoothly.

Need to get your employees trained? Check out our Food Protection Manager, Food Handler, and Allergen Awareness training programs.

Always Food Safe has partnered with the Food Recovery Network to give food handler training to their volunteers.

The Food Recovery Network is a student-led movement that donates surplus food from campuses to those in need. Started by four college students back in 2012, their program is now on 172 campuses and has recovered 4.1 million meals.

Food Handler training will teach volunteers about food safety topics such as temperature control, avoiding cross-contamination, proper storage techniques, and personal hygiene. This will help volunteers package and transport food safely, and help their communities.

Interested in contributing the Food Recovery Network? Visit their website to see how you can help.