Food Safety:How to Reduce Food Spoilage (1/2)

Don't let spoiled food spoil your business. Spoilage can lead to a decrease in food taste and presentation, not to mention foodborne illnesses. To build a good reputation, restaurateurs need to ensure that spoiled food never makes it to a customer's plate. Good business sense dictates that restaurants take steps to reduce spoilage rather than merely trashing spoiled foods. Restaurants suffer a monetary loss when they're forced to throw away food that has gone bad. This course will teach you about some of the controls and systems that can help reduce spoilage. Section 1: Purchasing Reducing spoilage starts with the purchasing process. By purchasing fresh items in the appropriate amounts from approved sources, you can limit the amount of spoilage. ? Always purchase from licensed and approved vendors. ? Create purchase specifications that list what you expect from a product. For example, your specifications for lettuce might state that it be a healthy green color with no loose leaves and no brown leaves. Such specifications can help guarantee that you receive fresh items. You can also specify the type of ripeness desired of certain produce. For example, tomatoes are typically available in six stages of ripeness. Select an appropriate degree of ripeness to avoid spoilage. If you don't plan to use all your tomatoes at once, you might want to specify that a certain amount be riper than others, so they don't all peak simultaneously. ? Select a restaurant-oriented purveyor. To ensure that you'll receive the freshest items, ask plenty of questions and examine the quality of the food as well as the cleanliness of the plant and the delivery truck. ? Order the appropriate amount of an item. Closely track your inventory and your sales so that you order only what you need. Overordering can lead to food spoilage. Section 2: Receiving Once you've ordered the right products, your next step is to ensure that they arrive at your operation in peak condition. ? Check each product for temperature, quality and freshness as it arrives. Use all your senses to check for freshness-look, smell, feel and even taste the product. Make sure the item meets your purchase specifications. Randomly examine the entire contents of a box rather than just the items on the top. ? As part of your receiving practices, check that refrigerated items arrive at proper temperatures, usually 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below. ? If a product does not meet your standards of freshness, refuse to accept it. Section 3: Storage Proper storage methods can lengthen a product's shelf life. They can also prompt you to use the items received first before using new arrivals. Rotating your stock in this fashion helps reduce spoilage. ? Immediately unpack and store items. Repackage items in uniform, see-through plastic containers that seal tightly to extend the product's life. ? Mark each item with the date it was received. You can use magic markers, grease pencils, different color stamps or a date stamp-whatever works best for your operation. ? Use the First In First Out (FIFO) storage method. Using this method, new items are shelved behind the stock you already have. Once items have been properly shelved, use items stored in the front first. This ensures that you use the lettuce that arrived on Monday before the lettuce you received on Wednesday. ? Be sure to store products in the proper places. Items such as rice and pasta should be kept in cool, dry places. Frozen food should be kept at 0 degrees Fahrenheit or below, not 32 degrees. Refrigerated items should be stored at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below. Potentially hazardous items-such as meat, egg and cheese products-can be kept safely refrigerated for up to seven days, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Freeze items such as meats if you might not be able to use them within seven days.