Home / National Food Safety Month Week 1: Focus is on personal hygiene
Campaign promotes rules for safe food handling, which is even more important during the coronavirus threat.
From the start of the pandemic, health authorities urged the public to cover their mouths and noses when coughing or sneezing and to wash their hands often to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
These personal hygiene steps have always been at the foundation of the ServSafe food-safety training program, and the pandemic reinforces why they are so critical. What you can’t see could really harm you.
As National Food Safety Month kicks off, ServSafe, the National Restaurant Association’s food safety training and certification program, is offering tips, tools and education on proper hygiene practices that restaurant managers and employees should follow.
NFSM’s theme this year — in celebration of ServSafe’s 30th anniversary — is “Managing Risk: 30 years of Food Safety.” Over the coming weeks, the team is offering 30 best practices in five different categories for staff members explore. Topics this year are:
All the information is sharable through a series of handouts, activity sheets, and other tools available for download.
Virtual “Employee of the Week” Holly will lead Week 1’s lessons on personal hygiene. Her top tips include:
Larry Lynch, the Association’s senior vice president of Certifications & Operations, tells operators they must always reinforce the importance of good personal hygiene, especially hand washing.
“Reinforce good hand hygiene with your staff members,” he said. “Everyone must frequently wash his or her hands. Hand sanitizers are good to have, but they’re never a replacement for a vigorous 20-second hand washing. Don’t put restrictions on the time employees need to do it. Instead emphasize the importance and teach them proper handwashing techniques.”
ServSafe delivers six tips and teaching activities to reinforce ways to correctly clean and sanitize your restaurants.
Pathogens can move around easily, spreading from food or unwashed hands to prep areas, equipment, utensils, and other food. But you can prevent it.
Most foodborne illness happens because TCS food has been time-temperature abused.