The preparation area should be clean if you’re handling food items. People cringe at the thought of salmonella, listeria, and E.coli. These can cause serious health conditions that no one wants to get. You can prevent them getting into your products when you execute strict hygienic protocols in your warehouse. Here’s how to implement them.
Everything Inside the Factory Must Be Clean
A factory is susceptible to different elements like pests and bacteria. Some workers might forget to clean a piece of equipment or storage. This can be a cause of health hazards. The first thing to keep in mind is to buy durable items for the factory. The pieces of equipment should be easy-to-clean. There should be no hollow spaces within the equipment because those are hard to reach.
Proper Hygiene
Victoria’s government website shared that everyone in the factory must know about hygiene. The first step is to always wash hands before and after handling foods. Hands should be dry when touching anything inside the factory. There should be clean towels, paper towels, and air dryers in the vicinity.
Managers must ban smoking, eating, chewing gums, or spitting on the premises. Changing diapers is also not allowed. Employees can bring spare clothes and other personal items, but those should be away from the storage and preparation area.
Employees should cover their noses, heads, and mouths when entering the food area. They should also wear proper work aprons and gloves. They should clean their nails and cut them short. Wearing jewelry in the factory is also a no-no.
Sick employees can’t come to work, especially food handlers. They must wait 48 hours without feeling the symptoms before going back to work. In addition, they must put bandages on any open wounds to prevent contamination.
Pest Prevention
It’s common sense to prevent pests from coming to the area. But, you should call pest control if they’ve already infested the factory. Address this issue soon because pests can compromise food quality.
Food Storage
Learn2serve says that food handling and storage is important in protecting products. Some foods need special storage equipment because they can get stale faster. There are also foods that need the proper temperature to stay fresh longer. Buy the right warehouse pallet racking for your factory. This ensures that your food products are safe.
Training for Employees
Employees can do their work better if they know what to do. Help them get better with their jobs by sponsoring training for them. They should learn the basic concepts of cleanliness in the warehouse. Aside from that, enroll them in classes where they can also learn proper food handling.
Food Handling Knowledge
Your employees can use the things they learned from their training. You should expect them to know how to determine food safety in their areas, and they should always put their food safety knowledge into practice. Aside from that, you need to ask for food safety reports. You can use this to assess if everything is alright in the warehouse.
Keeping a Clean and Safe Food Warehouse
Put your customers first by employing safety practices. A bad reputation is hard to repair once it becomes common knowledge. Grow your business by making sure you don’t get complaints about unsafe food products.
