Why is Food Safety Important For Your Business?
Part 1: Food Borne Illness
If your business is providing food to the public, don’t you think that it is your moral obligation to ensure that the food you’re serving is safe?
Yes, certain aspects of food safety may seem logical such as washing hands and keeping raw food items away from ready to eat food items… However, you’d be surprised by how quickly food can become contaminated.
Don’t forget, food safety failures cost money and damage your reputation, which in turn costs even more money and threatens your business. Food safety is not only a moral, but legal obligation. So… Why don’t we dive into the reasons why food safety is such a crucial factor for your operation.
In this blog post, we will be specifically looking at food borne illness, or food poisoning. Next month, we will approach another topic related to food safety.
Food poisoning occurs when food becomes contaminated by bacteria, viruses and other germs, making those who consume the contaminated food very ill. Typically, food poisoning can be treated at home within a week, but sometimes food poisoning can be serious and require urgent medical attention. Therefore, knowing how to protect consumers from food poisoning is essential.
When you serve unsafe or contaminated food, this will most likely lead to your customer contracting a food-borne illness. Every year, millions of people in each country get sick from food-borne illnesses and as a result, are hospitalised - some cases can even lead to fatalities.
The majority of food-borne illnesses are caused by food handling mistakes, poor personal hygiene and contaminated food preparation surfaces or equipment. It is so important to be aware of these risks and how you can prevent food-borne illnesses from happening. Everyone in your business who works with food must:
- Be trained on how to maintain personal hygiene
- Understand how food can become unsafe and contaminated
- Know the different types of food contamination
- Know about potentially hazardous or high risk foods
- Understand the causes of food-borne illness (bacteria, toxins, viruses)
- Must know how to safely store, thaw, prepare, cook and serve food
- Know how to effectively clean and sanitise surfaces, equipment, dishes and utensils
You can avoid food poisoning by implementing a food safety culture within your business. Why not start right away?
Stay tuned for the next month’s topic related the importance of food safety for your business.
