FOOD HYGIENE
A DINER’S EYE VIEW
Diners are a captive audience when awaiting their meal and have plenty of time to observe any lapses in hygiene on the part of the restaurant. Rebecca Blake from Tork manufacturer SCA looks at the restaurant experience from the diner’s point of view.
When we pick up a snack or a sandwich from a fast food outlet, the transaction takes a matter of minutes and we may notice very little about our surroundings.
Ideally hygiene standards will be high but if not, the chances of us observing any minor infringements on the part of the establishment are fairly remote in the short space of time we spend awaiting our order.
But when we opt for table service the situation is different. Once seated at a restaurant table we will remain in the same spot for several hours, during which time we will become a captive audience to whatever is happening around us. And when there is a lull in the conversation with our companions there will be nothing better for us to do than to take in our surroundings.
The table itself will be the first thing we assess. The cleanliness of the tablecloth; the napkin quality; the shine on the cutlery and the presence or otherwise of flowers – all will come under our scrutiny.
58 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning March 2016
Then our eyes will stray further afield as we pick up on details we may barely be aware of on a conscious level. Perhaps we will see the waitress forget herself and wipe her mouth on her sleeve, for instance. Or maybe we will watch the waiter drop a knife on to the floor and surreptitiously wipe it off before putting it back on the table.
“Most restaurant and hotel guests are there to enjoy themselves and are not
usually on the lookout for evidence of poor hygiene.
But if such evidence exists, it will be hard for the sedentary customer to miss it.”
Many restaurants today have a viewing window on to the kitchen enabling diners to see their food being prepared. These types of venue provide even more opportunities to witness any slip- up in hygiene standards.
We at Tork tested out this theory in a recent eye-tracking study we staged at a Stockholm restaurant. We equipped 10 volunteers with eye-tracking spectacles and sent them out to dine, using heatmap technology to monitor what they looked at.
We discovered that the volunteers’ eyes were repeatedly drawn to anything that moved. Some diners said they were interested in how their food was being prepared and the heatmapping technology confirmed this, revealing that they spent a great deal of time gazing into the kitchen. One subject also admitted to keeping a check on the hygiene standards of the kitchen staff.
Another diner’s eyes were drawn to the ceiling which had an open ventilation system – something he mentioned later to be an area of concern.
The restaurant décor was also observed from every angle by the subjects. And when in the washroom, their eyes were drawn to the fresh flowers and the attractive, modern fittings.
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