Food Safety’s Importance: Training Staff & Employees

There’s absolutely no reason for a commercial kitchen not to follow proper food safety procedures; safety is the most important thing in a restaurant kitchen, and it’s up to you to teach your staff and other employees proper practices to keep food safe and properly handled for your customers. Here’s why:

Your staff are the ones actually handling the food. It’s great if you know proper food safety practices, but since the kitchen and wait staff are the ones actually touching the food, it’s important that they know proper etiquette and safety. In the end, this protects both staff and customer.

Your wait staff needs to be trained in food safety! It’s important!

It’s a legal requirement (you know, health code). Although only your managers are required to get food safety certification, health code requirements stipulate that your entire staff and employees must have a working knowledge of food safety. It’s your job (and/or the manager’s) to see to their training.

Reducing the risk of food poisoning. If a customer at your restaurant ends up getting food poisoning, they’re unlikely to return. In fact, they’ll probably complain to their friends and family, possibly impacting your business in a real and even permanent way. Training your entire staff in food safety practices is the best way to reduce the chance of this ever happening — it is crucial to business.

Quality control via staff training. If your staff is properly trained, less food will be wasted or thrown out due to poor quality control. Knowledge will lead to better food practices in your kitchen and on your floor.

Changing behavior. Training and regularly referring to best practices in food safety will ingrain the knowledge and habits in your staff, changing these behaviors to second nature. Unless you make a conscious effort to train and reapply this training knowledge throughout the months, you can’t expect your employees to work with food safety in the forefront of their minds.

In the long term, training all of your employees in proper food safety and handling procedures means your customers and staff will be safer and happier. It will even lead to greater pride and job satisfaction among those who work in your restaurant, and happier employees mean happier customers.

I’ll be back with another post next week. Until then, leave a comment below or contact us here.