FOOD SAFETY AND STEAM CLEANING
Food hygiene in the great outdoors
Street food is increasingly popular – particularly in the summer when people are keen to eat outdoors – but maintaining high standards of hygiene can be a real challenge for operators. Essity’s Jeremy Bennett looks at ways of optimising cleaning and hygiene on an outdoor food stall.
Excitement is building for the 2023 British Street Food awards. Heats are currently being held all over the country in preparation for the grand finals in London in August.
The first event took place in 2010 and the awards have been gaining a higher profile every year. Food Munity, the company behind the awards, now runs similar events in Europe and the US where it is raising the profile of an already-booming industry.
Street food no longer simply constitutes a bag of chips or a greasy burger purchased from a van. It can now be anything from an Ethiopian vegan plate to a pad Thai, Indian thali or Swiss raclette. As the nation becomes more cosmopolitan in nature, so does our choice of food. However, producing high quality fare can be significantly more challenging on a street stall than it is in a restaurant kitchen.
For one thing, staff members are obliged to work in full view of the public with no back-of-house area where they can hide. So, hygiene protocols need to be scrupulously followed – because the customer will be watching.
The stall will quickly gain a grubby appearance when crumbs, noodles and other food products are allowed to soil the narrow counter. Staff will therefore need to repeatedly wipe down all surfaces to create an impression of cleanliness and order.
32 | TOMORROW'S CLEANING
However, this task will be made more difficult by the lack of a mains water supply – a drawback that also makes handwashing problematical. Frequent hand hygiene will be crucial in order to reduce the risk of cross-contamination.
There will be little space in which to work on a street stall, and this will only heighten the challenge of keeping all surfaces looking clean, tidy and uncluttered. Despite the increasing sophistication of the outdoor food market, many items purchased will still be prepared – and eaten – with the hands. This makes the need for hygiene doubly important since dirty hands could contaminate the food product before it is ingested.
Despite all these challenges, street stall holders still have to satisfy the food inspectors that their premises are clean and hygienic. According to the Nationwide Caterers Association, inspectors have a clear checklist when assessing outdoor stalls: they want to see adequate handwashing facilities in place, plus a means of drying the hands and appropriate equipment for cleaning surfaces. They will also expect all food surfaces to be tidy, safe and easy to clean.
So, how do food stall-holders ensure that their hands and surfaces remain clean and hygienic?
All hand hygiene products should be easy to use, easy to locate, quick to refill and highly compact to suit the limited
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