The not so good, bad and ugly side of restaurant kitchens
In January this year, the operations manager of the ‘Indian Summer’ restaurant in Colombo 7, was arrested after Public Health Inspectors discovered deplorable levels of hygiene in the kitchen. Spoilt and expired food items including meat, vegetables and fruits were found. Raw meat was put on top of cooked food items in a malfunctioning freezer. In February, maggots were found in a meat dish served to a diner at ‘China Street Foods’ within the Food Studio Atrium located at the Colombo City Centre mall. In March, ‘Calorie Counter’ at Colombo 7, which promises fresh, healthy food with the mantra ‘Eat Healthy, Stay Healthy”, was ordered to shut down for allegedly violating food safety regulations. A check of the freezer at the restaurant showed that food items unsuitable for human consumption had been stored inside it.
When you think about it, it's kind of astonishing how much trust we put in hotels and restaurants. We allow total strangers (called chefs or cooks) to prepare our meals in anonymity and we blindly choose to believe that nothing bad has happened to the food on our plate. Given the opportunity to inspect the places where our food is prepared, many of us would struggle to build an appetite. While there are undoubtedly clean hotel and restaurant kitchens, there are a very great many more that do not comply with the basic requirements of cleanliness and sanitation. “See nothing, say nothing” may work for many of us, but in the long run it does nothing to promote reform. The recent actions of the municipal authorities to inspect and enforce proper cleanliness and sanitary requirements in public restaurants are therefore to be applauded.
The restaurants that have made headlines for their poor handling of food represent a fraction of possibly hundreds of others who are culpable of getting away with putting customers at risk. Naming and shaming those found guilty should serve as a rude awakening to restaurant owners and managers to check their processes of safety and ensure their employees are following proper procedures.
The World Health Organization, for example, lists five factors of food handling that contribute to food borne illnesses:
Food handlers need to have the proper knowledge about food safety. They need to know when something is cooked and when it isn’t suitable for consumption. They must have proper personal hygiene. They’ve got to keep all food equipment, preparatory surfaces, and utensils clean. They need to store food at the right temperature and in the right place and make sure these systems are maintained and recorded.
Clearly, food safety and the prevention of food borne illnesses are extremely important for both public health and private economic concerns. Even with government – imposed standards and random inspections, highly unsafe food conditions exist too often and beyond belief.
Caterers in Eastern China have tapped artificial intelligence (AI) to clamp down on unsanitary cooks in kitchens- and to reward those who adhere to best practices. A camera-based system currently being piloted in the Zhejiang city of Shaoxing automatically recognizes “poor [sanitation] habits” and alerts managers to offending workers via a mobile app. It’s reportedly the fruit of a six-year project - Sunshine Kitchen: that seeks to bring transparency to food preparation in catering, hotels, school cafeterias, and restaurants.
Now that’s ‘Food for thought’
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex- Hotelier |
|
|
|
