Heat stress in the kitchen | Why the cold chain breaks in high temperatures
Heat stress in the kitchen - a contribution by De Horeca Helper
Temperatures are rising this week in the Netherlands, which means full terraces and dealing with products that need to look good on the table in the sun. In short, quite a few businesses are experiencing heat stress around this topic. You can make this easier on yourself by digitizing temperature control around your products, for example with the app for HACCP and cleaning registration from De Horeca Helper. A contribution from them about ‘Heat stress in the kitchen’!
2 minutes read
Heat stress in the kitchen about food safety
A full walk-in cooler has to work harder as the kitchen heats up. Especially on busy, warm days, it pays to check the temperature more often. Once the mercury climbs toward thirty degrees, the food safety risk in a hospitality business shifts. Not to the spot everyone keeps an eye on, the hot kitchen, but to the spot that normally takes care of itself: the refrigeration. Heat is not a mere inconvenience for a kitchen but a HACCP issue, and that gets underestimated.
The reason lies in the technology. A refrigerator or salad station is designed to reach a certain internal temperature in a normal environment. As the kitchen climbs to tropical values, the compressor has to work harder and often fails to reach its set value. A salad station that effortlessly hits four degrees Celsius in spring can easily sit at eight in August. Bacteria grow fastest between seven and sixty degrees Celsius, and that’s precisely where a cold product ends up unnoticed.
In practice, it comes down to three things. First: check refrigeration more often during a heatwave, not less. Right now, yesterday’s measurement says little about today. Second: work with smaller batches. A large container sitting outside refrigeration for an entire shift is both a risk and a loss, while refilling more often keeps everything fresh and cold. Third: record the measurements. On busy, warm days, record-keeping is the first thing to suffer, while those are exactly the days that matter most.
Digital temperature registration | A deviating measurement stands out immediately
“More and more businesses are digitizing that control, for example with De Horeca Helper, an app for HACCP and cleaning registration. A phone or tablet in the kitchen replaces the damp paper checklist by the fridge: staff register temperatures, cleaning tasks and hygiene checks there, optionally with photo evidence. The manager sees at a glance which check is still outstanding or overdue, and a deviating measurement stands out immediately, instead of only being noticed during an NVWA inspection. When the inspection comes by, the complete registration is ready as an export with one click. Besides HACCP, the app also offers staff scheduling, mise-en-place and recipe management with live allergen management, so the entire kitchen works within one system.” According to Bas Gaertman of De Horeca Helper (company name meaning: The Helper of the Hospitality Industry).
Heat stress is no longer an incident, it’s part of an increasingly warm summer. The businesses that come through it smoothly not only keep their cold chain in order, but also visible.
Heat stress in the kitchen – a contribution by De Horeca Helper
Website: De Horeca Helper
