Opera ti ons
HOTEL Business Review
Need for a Vegetable Washer Commercial practices of sanitizing are sometime severe and have undesirable effect on food materials. Pressure cleaning has become vital and with equipment like vegetable washer it is now convenient for us to achieve the results with least effort.
A
s the growing trend or consciousness of h av i n g r i c h n u t r i e nt b as e d wholesome food is increasing, we sometime apply that technically and loose on the front that is so obvious. True, we tend to divert from the fact that the very vital procedure towards ensuring food safety is proper cleaning of vegetables before it goes to the chopping board. The procedure of cleaning vegetables is mostly considered of minute importance and guidelines are restricted to manuals that give information on step-by-step system to be followed. It is also practically impossible to follow each and every step of manuals in the kitchen, which remain busy throughout. The only concern on which nothing should be compromised is the food hygiene, the reason for good food of any F&B service establishment.
of pathogenic microorganisms between the time food travels from farm till plate. A number of guidance documents has been developed. The International Fresh-cut Produce Association’s guidelines for fresh fruit and vegetables, is based on principles of HACCP, Good Agricultural Practices, Good Handling Practices and Good Hygienic Practices.
Need for Vegetable Washer borne. However, microorganisms get added up after harvesting of vegetables, and the condition of storage, transport and display are responsible for how pathogens grow or not grow. Eliminating the risks is difficult. Managing them should be based on identifying and controlling factors that are important in preventing contamination or limiting growth
Washing up Eatables Washing vegetables sounds so simple yet has to be minutely monitored. Raw vegetables in any commercial foodservice establishments, come in bulk and thus before storage enough precautionary measure has to be taken for storing vegetables in acceptable conditions. Fo r a l m o s t 1 0 0 ye a rs , ve g eta b l es contamination has been the prime reason behind human infection and illness. Many of the viruses, bacteria and protozoan on vegetables, which causes food poisoning, are derived from human faeces. Contamination from animal faeces is also well known and there are always other microorganisms, which occur naturally in soil or are air-
54
May-June ’22
Nitin Kumar
Since a lot of fertilizers and chemicals are used during the farming fruits and vegetables, it is necessary to ensure that those chemicals do not find entry into our system, and thus the need for vegetable washer arises. Research is on to understand better the mechanisms through which pathogens contaminate raw fruits and vegetables and procedures for removing pathogens. Th e re i s a l ways a c l o u d of d o u bt about the efficacy of disinfectants in killing parasites and viruses on fruits and vegetables. Washing fruits and vegetables in potable water is believed to remove a portion of microbial cells. In some instances, vigorous washing could give us result that a treatment with water containing 200mg/l chlorine would achieve. Few considerations need to be taken into account when using a vegetable washer machine like controlling pH of the solution when using chlorine as a sanitizer; the temperature of wash water should be higher than that of the fruits and vegetables to minimize uptake of microorganisms by tissues. Although, disinfectants have variable effects on pathogen control
