Learn How To Ensure Your Restaurant's Walk-In Refrigerator Passes An Inspection By The Health Inspector
When you own a restaurant, it is important to be able to pass an inspection by the health inspector. One of the most important areas in your restaurant is the walk-in refrigerator. The guide below walks you through a few tips for ensuring your restaurant's refrigerator always passes its inspections.
Check the Thermostat Regularly
Be sure to have someone check the thermostat on a regular basis and annotate its temperature readings in a notebook to ensure that you can track if it is or is not maintaining a constant temperature. If you notice that the temperature is not consistent, you need to have a repair person come and repair it right away.
Have the Refrigerator Serviced Regularly
When you have a large commercial refrigerator in your business, it is important to have it serviced regularly to ensure that everything works properly within it. The technician will check the seals to make sure that they are sealing properly, check gauges to make sure they are working well, and test the temperature in the refrigerator to make sure the thermostat is accurate. For more information about servicing your refrigerator, talk to your appliance provider or a company like Hy-Point Restaurant Equipment & Supplies Inc.
Label Everything that Goes into the Refrigerator
When you put anything in the refrigerator, the outside of the container should be labeled with the time, date, and what is in the container. This allows you to know when things were opened so that you can make sure that they are safe to serve to customers. If you have things sitting in the refrigerator that are not properly labeled when the inspector inspects the restaurant, you could fail your health inspection because the inspector will not know if you are serving expired or rotten food to customers.
Be Sure to Cover Everything That Goes into the Refrigerator
Anything that is put into the refrigerator should be covered. Raw meat should be placed in specific containers that have lids so that nothing can get to the meat and contaminate it. If you have raw meat sitting out, the blood could get onto other food and spread salmonella.
Be sure that your staff cleans the refrigerator on a regular basis. You need to be sure that there are no pools of blood, no rotten vegetables or fruits, and no mold growing in the refrigerator. If you do fail your health inspection, the inspector will give you a list of the things that need to be addressed and give you a specific amount of time in which they need to be addressed.