Restaurants and catering

When it comes to restaurants and catering, there are many factors that determine just how successful they will be. Having delicious food, great customer service and a pleasant atmosphere are certainly important, but those are necessarily evident for potential first-time customers.

When people first walk up to a restaurant, there are typically two things they look at to make their decision about whether or not to ask for a table - the menu and the health inspector rating. While testo can't provide expert advice on appetisers and entrees, Testo's line of digital thermometers and temperature data loggers can play a key role in earning top marks from health inspectors.

As a restaurateur, you want to serve your guests fresh and tasty dishes without any contamination by germs. You ensure this quality through two principles:

• Compliance with the cold chain for refrigerated foods
• Sufficient heating of cooked dishes

In comparison to large kitchens ( e.g. in hospitals, company canteens, catering operations), smaller restaurants and hotel kitchens rarely have a specially designated person with the responsibility for food safety.

This means: The head chefs and/or owners are themselves responsible for compliance with the HACCP principles and hygiene standards.

Because core tasks take up virtually all the operational capacity, HACCP tasks have to be carried out alongside them. Measuring technology solutions in this area should therefore be easy to use and reliable. Ideally, practical features can even considerably reduce the time needed for the respective tasks. For example, the acquisition of an automatic monitoring system pays off in reduced personnel costs.

By law, food processing companies also include restaurants, kitchens and canteens. Resulting from this is the obligation to maintain a self-monitoring system to monitor hygiene regulations.

Raw materials and finished foods which are stored and prepared, are exposed to hazards. Incorrect temperatures are the main cause for high germ contamination levels. Risk factors here are as follows:

• Temperature overshoots on reception (Incoming Goods) of the food
• Inadequate refrigeration during storage
• Inadequate heating before food service
• Undershooting the minimum temperature when food is being kept warm
   

The HACCP concept was introduced as a quality management system in order to minimize these risks.

Food legislation prescribes proof of adherence to the cold chain and sufficient heating of the food before serving. This proof is provided in the form of the written documentation of the measurements carried out. The restaurateur must ensure that measurements are taken with sufficient frequency.

The objective is a continuous and uninterrupted monitoring of the products and the production steps. This is especially important for the CCPs (Critical Control Points), which are crucial to the HACCP concept. CCPs are critical points at which a risk to the guests’ health can occur. An important example is the adherence to limit values in core temperature measurement.

In food management in gastronomy, the principle applies: “If it’s not documented, it doesn’t exist.” This is why the authorities impose fines for non-compliance with the HACCP concept. In the worst case, the food hygiene assessors will close the restaurant down.