FOOD HYGIENE
CHOP, SLICE AND DICE THE MOP
All too often, the way kitchen floors are cleaned is part of the food hygiene problem. Yet the solution is simply so cost-effective, customers won’t have to pay for it, says James White, Managing Director of Denis Rawlins Ltd.
Food hygiene and safety may have never had a higher profile, yet there’s a fundamental and unpalatable risk that’s being widely ignored. Floors in food premises – and especially kitchens – are an ever-present danger.
Yet the floor cleaning regime in many establishments serves only to multiply the potentially harmful bacteria lurking beneath our feet, and the risks of slips and falls as well.
As an advisor to food producers and outlets, among other sectors, we are also acutely aware of the other fundamental forces at work in the food business. Cleaning both for purposes of food hygiene and presenting a pristine appearance to customers must be carried out within severe constraints – of time, space, training and cost. We understand the commercial realities of this pressure- cooker environment.
The scientific reality of how floors become reservoirs of health- threatening pathogens is not so well understood. Various studies have identified the microbes that shoes track onto kitchen and restaurant floors from toilets, washrooms and outside, but we tend to underestimate the routine contacts that transfer germs from floor to hand – via trailing shoelaces, dropped utensils, electrical cords or food cartons stored on the floor.
Meanwhile, the grease and spills in a warm and damp kitchen environment provide a fertile breeding ground for bacteria. Grout lines in tiled floors and the nooks around tables, fridges and other floor-standing fixtures are highly hospitable to fast-growing microbes. So what looks like a clean floor can play host to a stomach-churning mix of biohazards.
48 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning August 2015
The reason this is more common than we should expect is that many of these floors are still hand-mopped. Mopping is far more effective at spreading contamination than removing it. Where food is being prepared, it’s a recipe for insanitary disaster.
Scientific analysis has proven the limitations of this form of ‘cleaning’. In a US study’s three-way comparison test, microfibre mopping reduced the quantity of bacteria on a soiled vinyl tile floor by 51% at best. When bacteria plates were analysed the mop’s effectiveness dropped to 24% because the mopping dragged E. coli back into the cleaned areas.
The other methods – a scrubber dryer and a system that dispenses cleaning solution and then vacuums the soils and water – each removed 99% of bacteria. This is why Denis Rawlins Ltd is campaigning for a more scientific approach to cleaning. In a commercial kitchen where the temperature of cooked food, chilled storage and the hygiene of work surfaces are monitored, floors deserve the same rigorous attention.
The realisation that cleaning staff still misuse most floors in this way also spurred us to mount our parallel campaign to ‘Chop the Mop’. Having scoured the world of cleaning for the most cost-effective solution, we were convinced by the performance of the OmniFlex cleaning system, which featured in the aforementioned tests.
OmniFlex is a crossover system that allows users on a tight budget to progress in stages from more hygienic mopping to five-star standards of cleanliness. Yet the equipment is easy to operate and surprisingly low-tech.
In the Dispense-and-Vac form it dispenses fresh solution through the trolley-bucket’s throttle spigot, before soils and water are vacuumed away to a separate tank, leaving the floor dry.
Cleaning in this way takes half or even a third of the time required for mopping. But the high standards achieved in the tests are well within the reach even of temporary or part- time staff with little experience and minimal training. Harassed kitchen staff are no longer put at risk from slips on greasy and newly mopped floors. Perhaps most reassuring of all, kitchen managers know that the safety of diners and reputation of the business are not being put at risk.
By tackling the biohazards hiding in plain sight, this science-based approach to cleaning provides a secure foundation for food safety. And as this technology is as low-cost as it is hygienic, your customers won’t have to pay for it.
www.rawlins.co.uk
twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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