Food safety is important for many reasons, and the number one reason is simple: everyone eats. Food that is handled improperly can make people sick. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from a foodborne illness each year. The FDA states, "While the American food supply is among the safest in the world, the Federal government estimates that there are about 48 million cases of foodborne illnesses annually. And each year these illnesses result in an estimated 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths."
The World Health Organization also notes that foodborne illnesses can cause long-lasting disability and even death. Clearly, proper food handling is vital, and a food safety training course is the starting place for making sure food is handled in the safest way possible.
Four safe food handling steps include:
- Clean: proper handwashing, keeping tools and surfaces clean and dry
- Separate: keep meat and other ingredients apart from each other
- Cook: properly check internal food temperature
- Chill: monitor refrigerator and freezer temperatures
Following food safety guidelines when handling and preparing food is a must. This includes washing your hands often, keeping meat separate from other foods, cooking food to the proper temperature, and storing food appropriately. All foodservice employees must be educated in the best practices for handling food.
Topics Covered in our Food Safety & Personal Hygiene Training Program:
- Understanding health codes
- Hand washing & personal hygiene
- Cleaning kitchen surfaces and spaces
- How and why to separate foods
- Proper cooking temperatures
- Proper methods for chilling food
- Additional safety rules
In addition to the obvious risks involved with foodservice, there are less evident risks that employers and employees should take into account, and safety training that highlights these hazards is also an important consideration. Common risks in the kitchen include slips, burns, fire, electrical issues, and improper handling of kitchen equipment. Accidents happen; however, good safety training prepares workers with sound hazard management skills. In addition to the Food Safety & Personal Hygiene program, we offer a Safety Orientation: Foodservice Training Program that covers many of the kitchen hazards workers need to navigate safely every day. For the OSHA requirements behind those hazards, see our guide to restaurant safety training and essential OSHA compliance for food service operations.
Safety Orientation: Foodservice Training Program Topics:
- Slips, Trips & Falls
- Lifting & Posture
- Fire Safety
- Burns
- Electrical Safety
- Chemical Safety
- Knives, Slicers & Other Sharp Items
- Personal Protective Equipment & Clothing
- Housekeeping
- First Aid
Both topics are also available as printed booklets in packages of 10: Food Safety & Personal Hygiene Training Booklets and Safety Orientation for Foodservice Training Booklets. To keep the message visible in the kitchen between training sessions, posters such as Clean Kitchen Is a Safe Kitchen and Safer Food, Follow the Path reinforce the basics. Our guide to restaurant food safety posters that drive compliance and employee accountability covers placement and selection.
The importance of food and kitchen safety cannot be overstated. People with weakened immune systems, pregnant women, older adults, and young children are at greatest risk of serious consequences from foodborne illness, but some organisms pose serious threats to everyone. Accidents caused by a lack of training or awareness can also be prevented. It is the responsibility of every employer to make sure employees have the training they need to protect themselves and others. For a full view of food service training programs, see Mastering Food Safety: Comprehensive Training Programs for Employee Compliance and Workplace Safety.