June
2019 Newsletter
Fruit flies: Since we are in the middle of fruit fly
season, I wanted to touch on a few ways they can be managed. Fruit
flies breed in areas of standing water with some type of food source.The
flies breed in one area and move to another when they grow their wings. This is
why they are so hard to dispatch. In my
experience, about 80% of the time, you’ll find them in worn grout lines,
unsealed areas around plumbing or in floor drains. If you see a cloudy, pasty looking surface
that appears to be fizzing like soda, you have found them. They appear and
long, thin worms as in the photo on the top and breed in areas that look like
moldy paste as in the photo on the bottom
Apply coffee machine hot or boiling water into these areas to instantly kill the larvae, keep them away by completely sealing the area, repairing the floor or grout and keeping the area dry.
Hand washing: There is a rather large Hepatitis A outbreak
in the Tampa area, so expect inspectors to be keying in on handwashing. Make sure all your sinks have hot water (at
least 100°) soap and towels. Employees
should wash hands for 15-20 seconds total.
Make sure to use the towel to shut off the water after washing hands as
everyone who touches the faucet to turn the water on does so with dirty
hands.
Sick Policy: Make sure your store has a sick employee
policy. We have the additional
challenges of understaffing and hangovers when it comes to making decisions to
send staff home. It can be difficult to
get some of the staff to work when they are well, all this is understood. However, guidelines say that an employee who
is vomiting, has diarrhea, or jaundice (yellowing of the eyes and skin), must
be excluded from work. In addition to
the Hep A outbreak in Tampa, there have been a few investigations into
Norovirus outbreaks in the area related to sick food handlers. If one of your staff shows up at the doctor
and is diagnosed with one of the big 5 foodborne illnesses (E. Coli, Norovirus,
Hepatitis A, Salmonella, Shigella) the doctor is required by law to notify your
health inspector. All these illnesses
but E. Coli, which is more closely related to cross-contamination of foods, can
be best prevented by proper hand washing.
Cross-Contamination: The
biggest source of cross-contamination in the kitchen are gloves and improperly
sanitized food contact surfaces. Coach the staff to change gloves when changing
tasks (wash hands in between). Don’t touch ready to eat foods with bare hands, minimize contact with foods,
especially raw foods, by using tongs, scoops, spatulas, etc. Make sure knives, slicers, dicers, cutting
boards, spoons and spatulas are properly sanitized between uses.
