The right surveillance system, if installed properly, can protect your restaurant from all kinds of dangers within and external.

Alarms

This is the most basic of all surveillance components. Attach them to any possible opening that a vandal or thief might make use of to sneak inside your restaurant. If the alarm is triggered, you can then use your surveillance system to monitor the area broken in and find the culprit without risking actual confrontation.

Alarms would also let you know whether people have gained unauthorized entry into private or classified areas like your kitchen, inventory or storage room, and personal office.

Cameras

A restaurant is best protected if different types of surveillance cameras are used.

Outdoor cameras must be discreetly installed, if not hidden, to see what your employees are up to outside the restaurant during breaks. It must also be used to scan for prowlers that might cause potential trouble to your patrons. Outdoor cameras are different from indoor cameras so be sure you’ve purchased the right equipment for this area. They must be weather proof and have heavy-duty casing to withstand all kinds of damage.

All view angles of your preparation and serving area must be covered by your hidden and visible surveillance cameras. You may also use decoy or dummy cameras to mislead troublemakers. Full coverage will ensure that nothing escapes your notice. If your employees are conspiring against you, they may simply turn their backs against the camera and huddle to prevent you from seeing what they’re up to and ditto with customers who are looking for trouble.

All surveillance cameras must have backup power in case of power shortage. Customers could run out to escape the tab, but if your surveillance cameras are still working, they can continue recording video footage even while your restaurant is under the cover of darkness.

Make sure also that they have high built-in memory and external memory slots. Wouldn’t you hate running out of disk space just when you needed to capture an image or footage of a particular incident?

Lastly, a wireless network for your surveillance system is also a must. When you have an out-of-town trip, you won’t have to worry excessively about what’s going on back home because you can access your surveillance system online. Just input your login details and you’ll see with your own eyes if your customers are still leaving with a smile and a full belly.

The best restaurant surveillance systems are those equipped with all the necessary components and installed property. HiddenPinholeCameras.com offers a wide variety of top quality security systems.

Bacteria, contaminants, and pathogens are all the enemies of your restaurant’s kitchen. It’s a battle you fight every day. The first line of defense is controlling the growth of pathogens that could make your customers sick. That is best accomplished through a robust HACCP program. Unfortunately, as effective as HACCP is at controlling pathogen growth through temperature management, there are many other areas where contamination can occur.

The most obvious is through food preparation equipment and utensils. Food processors, mixers, and slicers all need to be cleaned regularly with an approved sanitizer to prevent cross contamination. As for utensils, cutting boards and knives are probably the two most likely candidates for cross contamination, and it’s very important to your food safety program that you make sure different types of food are not coming in contact with each other through the use of the same utensils.

As you know, that’s easier said than done in a busy kitchen. Serving food on time is the number one priority, and, especially during the rush, your line isn’t always thinking about cross contamination first, no matter how much you train them.

That’s why color coded knives, cutting boards, tongs, and food labels can really help your kitchen staff minimize contamination without affecting their efficiency. Raw protein products like beef, poultry, and fish typically go with red cutting boards or knives. Raw vegetables go with green, and other food types go on white. Many restaurants will also separate poultry from other proteins and assign them to yellow utensils.Color Coded Kitchen Knives

The added bonus of using color coded food prep utensils is that you also prevent taste contamination. No one wants the juices left over from a T-Bone mixed with their chicken breast in a white wine sauce. Potential allergens are also effectively separated when you assign specific foods to certain colors. Shellfish is one of the most common culprits; many people can become violently ill if their food is in even passing contact with any kind of shellfish.

Finally, color coded labels can help your staff select the right product to pull from the walk-in very quickly. Most restaurants use a First In, First Out (FIFO) policy, which is effective at prioritizing the oldest product for first use on any given day. Color coded labels (e.g. red for “use now,” green for “just arrived off the truck,” and yellow for “use soon”) make sure you minimize spoilage and use your inventory in a safe but intelligent way.

Even in the sometimes chaotic atmosphere of a busy kitchen at the peak of the dinner rush, clear color codes can help staff maintain a high food safety standard that will keep your customers safe and coming back to your restaurant for more. This is especially important in an industry where employee turnover rates are so high. A simple color code system means new hires can plug into the team quickly without you having to worry about food safety being compromised. Color coding your food preparation process will make your kitchen run more efficiently and safely, which means you’ll have more time to take care of what’s really important: your customers.

Greg McGuire is a regular contributor to The Back Burner Blog, a resource for restaurant management written by the employees of Tundra Specialties, a company specializing in restaurant equipment, supplies, and equipment parts.

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.

• Check and record refrigerator temperatures at least twice a day.

• Refrigeration units do not cool by cold temperatures alone. When placing foods in a refrigerator, allow sufficient space between packages for air circulation and keep items away from the inside walls. Do not store foods directly on the floor of a walk-in cooler.

Section 4: Usage Procedures

Reducing spoilage takes constant vigilance. Build the following practices into your daily food-usage procedures.

• Make sure employees always check the use-by or expiration date on products. Discard products if the use-by or expiration date has passed.

• Inventory most foods on a daily basis so that you’ll know how much shelf life they have left.

• If you realize that you have an excess amount of a particular item, develop a daily special that uses the product before it spoils.

• Check that cold foods are held at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below and hot foods are maintained at or above 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The FDA Food Code allows for potentially hazardous foods-including, but not limited to meat, egg and cheese products-to be between 41 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit for no longer than a total of four hours. After four hours, the product must be discarded.

• To deter bacteria growth, pre-cool hot items before storing them in a refrigerator by using chill blasters, cooling wands and ice baths. If hot food must be cooled in the refrigerator, divide the food into small batches to quicken the cooling process.

• Despite your best efforts, some items will start to go bad. If you’re trying to determine whether something is usable, remember the classic adage-when in doubt, throw it out.

The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation offers products and courses to help train employees in safe food-storage and -handling procedures. For information on the Foundation’s ServSafe® and HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) materials, call the Educational Foundation at (800) 765-2122, extension 701, or log onto www.nraef.org.

Section 1: What to Do Before an Inspector Visits

Without a health inspection, your restaurant could fall victim to a foodborne-illness outbreak that could ruin your establishment’s reputation and even force you to close your doors.

The proper strategy for a successful health inspection is to be ready for an examination at any time. This means that you and your managers should become inspectors and conduct weekly, in-house examinations before health inspectors arrive.

• When conducting a self-assessment, you should use the same form-or a similar form-that your health department uses and put yourself in the health inspector’s place.

• Your self-inspection should include walking into your establishment from the outside to get an outsider’s impression.

• After you inspect your operation, hold a 10-minute briefing with kitchen staff to review any problems. This step will help convey the importance of food safety to staff members.

• If your staff includes employees for whom English is a second language, ask a bilingual employee to translate the findings to them so they also understand how important cleanliness is to the success of your restaurant.

• Your self-inspection priorities for kitchen employees should include: food temperature, awareness of food types and hand washing.

• Temperature guidelines include checking the temperature of products when they arrive, when they are stored and when they are served. Doing this will reduce foodborne-illness outbreaks by 70 percent.

• Food-type guidelines are divided into three categories: beef and beef blood; chicken; and all other types of food. These three categories can never touch each other during preparation.

• The importance of hand washing should be re-enforced by posting signs at all kitchen sinks and in employee restrooms.

• Train your managers to ensure that they are up-to-date on the latest food-safety techniques. Restaurant employees can use the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation’s ServSafe food-safety training program.

• Review your local health code for any special, local requirements.

• Another way to influence the outcome of your health inspection is to get involved politically. Join your state’s health-code-revision committee to give a restaurateur’s perspective. Involve senior staff on such committees as well.

Now that you have prepared for the examination, you need to know what to do when a health inspector arrives. Be warned that examiners usually arrive unannounced, so you’ll want to be ready on any occasion, even during a rush.

Section 2: What to Do When a Health Inspector Visits

Don’t panic when an inspector arrives. Think of this as a learning opportunity that will benefit your operation by making it as safe as possible.

To make an inspection as pain-free as possible, you should:

• Ask to see the inspector’s credentials first. In some cases, people have tried to pass themselves off as health officials. If you’re unsure of the person’s credentials, call the local health department or the inspector’s supervisor for verification.

• Do not refuse an inspection. The examiner will likely get an inspection warrant that you can’t refuse and the examination will be even more thorough.

• Tag along with the inspector and take notes of any violations he or she finds. This gives you the chance to correct simple problems on the spot and the examiner will note your willingness to fix problems.

• Refrain from offering any food or any other item that can be misconstrued as an attempt to influence the inspector’s findings.

• After the exam, be sure to sign the inspector’s report. Signing it doesn’t mean that you agree to the findings; it only means that you received a copy of the report.

• Ask the inspector to explain his findings to your staff and offer suggestions on areas that need improvement. Even the cleanest restaurants sometimes contain health-code violations.

Section 3: What You Can Do if You Are Cited

Here’s what you can do to limit the damage of an adverse health inspection:

• Fix small problems during the inspection to let the examiner know you are willing to work with him or her.

• If you don’t understand the violation, ask the health official to explain. Don’t be confrontational.

• If you disagree with the inspector’s findings, keep quiet for the time being and appeal the decision later. Your health inspector should be your ally. He or she can improve the quality of your cuisine and save you from the devastation of a foodborne-illness incident.

Additional resources: The National Restaurant Association and its Education Foundation offer a variety of courses to improve food safety in your restaurant, including:

• ServSafe, a food-safety certification program;

• A Practical Approach to Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point principles; and

• Unit-level employee-awareness materials. For more information, call 800-809-6032, extension 701, or log on to http://www.nraef.org.