The effective management of your tools and equipment will help to keep your customers safe and happy, while driving standards of efficiency and securing cost savings.

In a Commercial Kitchen, the last thing you want is for a foreign object to find its way into the food you are serving. Whether it’s a stray wire bristle or a plastic shaving, foreign body contamination can pose serious risks to customer safety. It can also damage your brand reputation.

One of the best ways to reduce the risks of foreign object contamination is through the effective management of your kitchen equipment. An added benefit? This will also improve the efficiency of your operation, speeding up cleans and delivering long-term savings.

In the following article, we’ll share three areas to consider if you are concerned about foreign body contamination and want to ensure your preventative measures are up to scratch.

1. Finding the right tools for the job

Start by equipping your kitchen with the right tools for the job. This saves time, boosts efficiency, and allows your team to focus on customer-facing tasks. It also reduces the risk of foreign object incidents, as properly maintained equipment is less likely to degrade, break, or splinter over time.

If you’re unsure which tools to choose, consult your equipment provider. An understanding of your kitchen’s challenges, budget concerns, and customer experience goals will help them to find the best fit for your operation.

To highlight the importance of choosing the right tools for your team, we want to share three examples that demonstrate the impact equipment can have on both efficiency and food safety.

EXAMPLE ONE

Wire-bristle brushes are commonly used to clean hot surfaces and equipment in Commercial Kitchens. However, these brushes can pose a serious food safety risk. There is the potential for the metal bristles to dislodge over time and make their way inside your food products. Due to the nature of these bristles, they could cause significant harm to the customer – lodging in their mouth, throat, or even stomach!

So why do sites continue to use this style of brush?

  1. They want their teams to be able to effectively remove stubborn residues, so are looking for bristles tough enough to do the job.
  2. They don’t want to waste time on waiting for surfaces to cool down before being cleaned, so they reject the idea of using food-safe plastic brushes.

The solution? High-heat brushware made from food-safe plastic (pictured below).

Designed for use on surfaces up to 250°C, these brushes effectively remove residue, without introducing metal bristles into your kitchen. They feature stiff bristles suited to robust cleaning tasks – helping your team to save time and become more efficient, while keeping your customers safe.

EXAMPLE TWO

When it comes to the removal of stubborn residues, a common mistake is to use tools that aren’t intended for such a robust cleaning task. For example, relying on a plastic hand scraper when a stainless steel version (pictured left) would be the safer and more suitable choice.

Although plastic scrapers are a versatile tool, suited to a wide range of applications, they are likely to dent or chip if used for a task that involves intense pressure and resistance. In contrast, a stainless steel scraper is built to tackle tough, baked-on residues with ease, speeding up cleaning duties and reducing the risks of foreign object contamination.

EXAMPLE THREE

Our third example is the use of soft-bristle brushes for applications where medium/stiff, or extra-stiff bristles are required. Developed for the removal of lightweight substances like dust and flour, extra-soft and soft-bristle brushes are not intended for tasks that involve extreme pressure and agitation. In fact, this kind of misuse can weaken the brush bristles, making them more likely to bend, clump, and snap.

Instead, tough cleaning tasks require brushes with medium/stiff or extra-stiff bristles. Again, this will speed up the cleaning process for your team. It will also prevent the undue damage and degradation of your equipment.

2. Visual inspections and equipment reviews

Once you have selected the right tools for your kitchen, the next step is to evaluate your approach to equipment storage. Instead of leaving your utensils out of sight – stacked precariously on a counter edge or piled on top of each other in a cupboard – you need to bring them into a highly-visible area.

Instead of leaving your utensils out of sight – stacked precariously on a counter edge or piled on top of each other in a cupboard – you need to bring them into a highly-visible area.

Not only will this make it quicker and easier for your team to find the tools they need, but it will also help to prevent unnecessary wear and tear, reducing the risk of small, degraded pieces of equipment finding their way into your food.

A growing number of Commercial Kitchens are introducing shadow boards and header boards for this purpose. These storage solutions feature dedicated spaces for each utensil and are known for extending equipment lifespan.

Shadow boards and header boards will also speed-up and simplify the process of conducting visual equipment inspections – helping to make them part of your site culture. You can even add an instructional message to the top of each board reminding your team to check equipment before and after use.

3. Team training and accountability

Another important step is to ensure your kitchen teams are engaged with the process of preventing foreign object contamination.

One of the best ways to do this is to highlight the ‘Why?’ behind your preventative measures, perhaps using real-life examples to demonstrate the potential risks to your customers, along with the damage a foreign body incident can do to a brand’s reputation.

You can then reinforce key messaging with instructional signs. Ideally, they should be highly-visual, featuring photo examples of what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ equipment looks like.

Foreign object prevention is crucial in Commercial Kitchens. After all, it only takes a single foreign object to risk the wellbeing of your customers, damage the reputation of your brand, and garner negative attention in the media.

We hope this article has highlighted the actionable steps that you can take in order to reduce the chances of this happening in your kitchen. The solutions shared throughout this guide should also help to drive standards of operational efficiency – ensuring long-term savings for your business.

As mentioned above, it’s always a good idea to discuss your equipment needs with your supplier, and the Klipspringer Team is here to help! You can contact us at 01473 461800 or sales@klipspringer.com. Alternatively, complete the form below and we will be in touch.

If you would like further guidance relating to the solutions included in this article, the Klipspringer team would be happy to help. Share your details below to arrange a discussion.

    Libby Loughnan, Content Manager at Klipspringer

    About the Author

    Libby Loughnan is Content Manager at Klipspringer, specialising in food safety and compliance. She writes extensively on helping commercial kitchens improve food safety, cut costs, and work more efficiently, covering everything from equipment storage to food oil management.