SAFETY AND SANITATION NOW

ACF Chef and food safety consultant Shawn Kohlhaas teaches us how to nail safety in a pandemic

By Amanda Baltazar

Having a safe and clean restaurant has always been a priority. But now, in the throes of a pandemic, chefs and restaurants are having to be extra vigilant and extra careful about safety and sanitation. What’s more, they must make it clear to guests—who may be apprehensive about eating out—exactly what they’re doing to take care of them.

Chef Shawn Kohlhaas is the principal partner at Culinary Cultivations, a food safety consulting firm in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He talked to us about what he expects restaurants to be dealing with for the immediate future.

NCR: What are the new safety and sanitation requirements?

SK: There aren’t solid requirements specific to everyone except to follow current ServSafe Food Safety training. All the other items we’re seeing are either strong recommendations, guidance tools or best practices mixed in with basic requirements for different areas such as employee testing. ServSafe has developed some great tools and learning videos specific to the current COVID-19 situation to help develop and execute best practices for take-out, delivery and opening your foodservice operation.

NCR: How can restaurants showcase their safety measures?

SK: It’s by doing what you say. Nothing says you’re providing a safe environment and safe food by making it very clear in your actions and the actions of your team that you’re taking precautions seriously and consistently. Use signs outside your building about your safety measures and the requirements you have for your operation to keep everyone safe. Having a person who greets your customers as they enter helps not only showcases your safety standards, but it also helps manage them and make sure they’re being adhered to.

NCR: How do you update your training for your staff?

SK: Always follow your normal safety training protocols. Everything we do on a daily basis, that we’ve learned and practiced before all this happened, is what we need to continue to do. Have shift meetings every day, at every shift, with all personnel, to review your current food safety protocols. Update and remind staff of the current COVID-19 protocols you have in place, and continue inservice trainings for food safety using written tools. That’s how we can continue to ensure that our staff has the knowledge to keep us all safe. It’s a good idea, once you’ve trained your staff, to provide them with written documents on safety so they can refer to them. Providing them digitally and printed is a good idea; the more communication you can give them, and the more repetition there is, the better. Also, have the safety policies easily reviewed in your restaurant — on a wall or in an accessible location such as an employee notification station.

NCR: What will be the biggest concerns in a post-COVID-19 world?

SK: Continuing to monitor factual data we gather from our governmental and regulatory agencies. You’ll get your best news from the direct sources, such as your state officials — the governor’s office, health departments and regulatory agencies such as the CDC, OSHA, FDA and USDA.

NCR: Are there any challenges you feel will be difficult for restaurants to implement/comply with?

SK: People — customers and employees — will be our biggest challenge. We are our own greatest enemy. Monitoring and controlling behaviors in our operation is imperative to help subdue the spread of this contagion. Having systems in place to sustain monitoring and having accountability measures in place with corrective action protocol will be most effective in keeping our operation and its environment safe. It’s important to have someone monitor and discipline employees and guests if they don’t uphold your standards. This could include expulsion from the restaurant or operation.

NCR: Will you be changing your teaching methods?

SK: We’re taking every protocol measure and viable suggestion to ensure a safe environment for our students. Everything from pre-entry COVID-19 screening (mostly asking them questions about exposure, but this could include taking temperatures) to social distancing; minimal contact, and constant sanitation practices before, during and after our classes and examinations is how we’re controlling the risk.

NCR: Do you think these changes will be permanent?

SK: I hope not. We’re a species that not only enjoys social interaction but it’s part of our nature. If changes become permanent, it’ll be because they were changes that should have been or need to have been made and the virus was the catalyst to spark the change.

NCR: What are the most important changes, going forward, for restaurants and foodservice operations to consider?

SK: Following the protocols of social distancing, COVID-19 screening, minimal contact, wearing masks indoors and especially when coming in closer contact with others is very important. Washing your hands properly, limiting your contact with hands to your face, restricting barehand contact with ready-to-eat food and sanitizing frequent touch points such as door handles, chairs, tables and menus all have to happen. Following regular food safety protocols is also of the utmost importance.

NCR: Do you think the new requirements are too much or too lenient?

SK: I think we’re right on point. We are constantly evaluating factual data to devise and execute protocols to keep us all safe.

NCR: What type of restaurants will have the biggest learning curve in adapting?

SK: Full-service by far will have the biggest challenge, due to being an operation that requires service. There are a lot of touch points and a lot of human contact that are a normal part of doing business for these operations. Expectations for service are lower as we look at fast-casual and quick-serve, as service is not the largest draw for these operations. It will be easier to justify to a customer a $5 hamburger verses a $10 hamburger if they have to retrieve their order from a counter or receive less service than normally received.