Food Safety: Prep

Tools and Equipment to Protect Food Safety During Prep

For the third part of our food safety series, we will be looking at risky areas of prep that may be hiding in plain sight. As we’ve mentioned in prior posts, most foodborne illnesses are caused by one of the following three things: time and temperature abuse, poor personal hygiene, or cross-contamination. Food is especially vulnerable to all these hazards during prep, since it is often exposed to ambient temperatures, other foods, human hands, and other potential contaminants. The good news is that a wide variety of prep tools and equipment were designed specifically to make the job of protecting food safety a lot easier. Here are a few of our favorites.

Mercer Millenia^® Colors for Color-Coding and Allergen Management

Valuable components of any HACCP system that are easy for employees to use, these essential prep tools sport color-coded handles for dedicated use applications such as produce, poultry, or meats, to reduce risk of cross-contamination. A prominent purple color on Mercer’s allergen safety collection of knives, turners, pie servers, pizza cutters, silicone bake mats, scrapers, and spreaders helps protect customers and provide your kitchen with a safe, simple, and easy way to avoid cross-contamination of products containing allergens or gluten.

Edlund Knife Sanitizing and Sterilizing Systems

The Edlund KSS-5050 knife sanitizing system provides a complete, non-electric method of liquid sanitizing, air drying, and storage of knives. The liquid sanitizing tank allows for submersion of the entire blade to ensure complete sanitizing.

The KSUV-18 Helios UV-C Sterilizer Cabinet has been proven to provide superior sterilization for knives and other kitchen utensils with germicidal UV-C light that bounces off of mirrored interior walls to reach every surface, providing complete sterilization of up to 12 knives plus steel. Independent laboratory testing indicated 99% reduction in E. coli bacteria in as little as 4 minutes!

TableCraft Film and Foil Dispensers for Hygienic Dispensing

Some of the most overlooked vehicles of cross-contamination in the kitchen are cardboard film and foil dispensers. Cardboard is absorbent and cannot be cleaned properly, allowing it to easily harbor microbial germs, contaminants, and pests. Whether you’re using film or foil to wrap food for storage, sanitized plates and utensils, or to-go items, TableCraft offers easy-to-clean, reusable dispensers in a variety of sizes and styles to keep your film, foil, food, and supplies more sanitary.

Bizerba Slicers

Ease of cleaning is an essential part of slicer design since it comes into direct contact with food. When choosing a slicer, look for models designed with smooth surfaces, rounded edges, and as few spots susceptible to build-up as possible. Bizerba offers a broad line of manual and automatic slicers with easily-removable mounting parts and other components that speed up cleaning and improve hygiene. Their optional Ceraclean® surface coating was developed by Bizerba for an even higher degree of protection from microorganisms, creating a nonstick surface that can be easily wiped down and sanitized.

Cambro Colander Pans

Ideal for prepped produce, storing seafood on ice, and defrosting meats, Cambro Colander Pans help food stay fresh longer by keeping it out of its own juices. Liquids drain down and away from the food into the pan below for clean and simple disposal, reducing handling and risk of cross-contamination.

Cambro High Heat Pans

The more food is handled or transferred from vessel-to-vessel, the greater the risk of cross-contamination. The Cambro H-Pan® can go from prep to cooler to microwave or oven to steam table, minimizing handling and risk.

Cambro FlipLids®

The FlipLid acts as an instant sneeze guard on a prep line, protecting food while in the lowered position. Unlike traditional covers that need to be set aside where they can pick up and transfer contaminants, the FlipLid features a built-in hinge that allows the lid to be easily lifted and tilted back for access to food and quickly flipped back down into the protective, lowered position.

We highlight food safety in September in honor of food safety month, but as we all know, food safety practices can never take a day off. Whether you need help reinforcing safety in prep or any other part of your operation, you can contact us for help all year long.