Category: food safety management

Ever had that eerie feeling when you’re alone in the kitchen at the end of a shift? It’s dark, silent, except perhaps for the soft hum of the chiller. You get chills up the spine, sweaty palms and it feels like there’s a commis cloth where your tongue was. Cue dramatic organ music, lightning flashes and bloodcurdling screams.

If your recurring nightmares involve you being buried by an avalanche of paperwork, it’s time to seek help.

And by ‘help’, we’re talking about a digital Food Control Plan (FCP).

If you’re head down running a busy kitchen, the thought of an impending food safety audit is probably enough to give you chills. For a start, there’s a mountain of paperwork required. You’re heavily reliant on team members constantly remembering their regular tasks and keeping accurate records. Plus, in recent years, hospitality businesses have had to manage the changes from the 1981 Food Act to the 2014 Food Act to make sure they remain compliant.

On top of running a kitchen – with its double shifts and unsociable hours – you’re busy managing food safety issues, protecting your kitchen’s food hygiene rating and maintaining quality standards. It’s your reputation on the line, so naturally you want to keep tabs on day to day operations.

While food safety tasks seem basic from the outset, they can be easy to forget or do ineffectively – especially when your team is busy servicing customers. With the introduction of the New Zealand Food Act 2014 there can bemore safety tasks to take on board, so it’s key to have some simple ways you can manage basic food safety in the kitchen.

The New Zealand Government is stepping up it’s strategy another level in the battle to bring down food-borne related illnesses, with the latest reductions being due to the Campylobacter Strategy being an encouraging result. There is now a New Zealand-wide study being developed that will compare sources of foodborne and non-foodborne cases of Campylobacter.