FOOD & DRINK
IN THE MARKET FOR BETTER HYGIENE
Food hygiene is a particular challenge for street food operators who have to work in cramped conditions with limited access to water and cleaning products. Essity’s Jeremy Bennett looks at ways of optimising cleaning and hygiene on an outdoor food stall.
Summer is here – which means street food can be purchased everywhere.
Whether you are attending a festival, a sporting event or simply strolling through a park or town centre, you are likely to come across a plethora of stalls serving burgers, hot dogs, samosas, sandwiches and pizzas.
Many of these food items will be prepared - and eaten - with the hands. But the Covid-19 pandemic has made us all more aware of the role played by the hands in passing on viruses and bacteria.
As a result, we have become increasingly vigilant about hygiene protocols. If we spot a transgression on the part of the street food operator, we are likely to walk away and never use that concession again.
However, maintaining strict hygiene standards is a greater challenge on a street stall than in other food preparation environments. Customers queuing up at a stall will expect their food to be served up as quickly as possible, so the pressure will be on for staff to produce tasty dishes in double-quick time. Food stall staff are also obliged to work in full view of the public, with no back-of-house area in which to hide. And the stall will quickly gain a grubby appearance when crumbs, ketchup and other food products are allowed to soil the counter.
Staff will therefore need to repeatedly wipe down their food preparation surfaces to create an impression of cleanliness and order. But this will be made more difficult
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by the fact that water will be at a premium because the supply will probably come from a tank linked to a mobile sink. There will also be little space in which to work which will only heighten the challenge of keeping all surfaces looking clean, tidy and uncluttered.
The limited water supply will also make hand washing problematic. However, frequent hand hygiene is crucial in order to reduce the risk of cross-contamination.
Despite all these challenges, street stall holders will 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 will want to see adequate hand washing facilities in place plus a means of drying the hands and appropriate equipment for cleaning surfaces. And 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 space. A wall-mounted soap dispenser is ideal because this will free up surface area. For example, the Tork Liquid Soap Dispenser comes in a mini version containing 500 doses of soap. And when the soap supply runs out, a new cartridge can be snapped into place in second which means the refilling process will not hold up the queue.
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