Take a Leafe out of Our Book and Master Food Hygiene
We’ve all seen it; footage of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay as he tears through another failing kitchen with cameramen in tow. ‘Disgusting!’ is the shout most often heard as he pulls yet another piece of unsavory, cross-contaminated produce from grubby fridge draws. Raw chicken nestled amongst veg, old shellfish swimming in its own juices, and dirty surfaces all make regular appearances. Thankfully, this is the uncommon extreme. Yet, images and hygiene horror stories such as these tend to stick long in the public’s memory. It is perhaps unsurprising then that the general understanding of food hygiene is somewhat one-dimensional, as attested to by a recent study from NFU Mutual. Amongst other findings they reported that when establishments are awarded a low food hygiene rating the publics first three assumptions are that it is due to the establishment having a dirty workspace, bacteria outbreaks, or pests.
Perhaps, this may in some way revolve around self-preservation, erring on the side of caution when it comes to food of a questionable safety is, after all, inbuilt into our DNA. However, achieving and maintaining high food hygiene standards is a much more multifaceted process than just maintaining a state of cleanliness. Food hygiene ratings, which range from 0 (requiring urgent improvement) – 5 (very good), are provided by the Food Standards Agency and are the result of inspection days where authorized officers visit venues and calculate scores based on indicators such as how hygienically the food is handled, the layout of the business, and the quality of paperwork completed. The bulk of this paperwork is constituted by food hygiene records, forms that record hygiene compliance at all stages of the food supply chain. In the hospitality industry, the most common records include fridge temperatures at opening and closing times, cooking, and cooling temperatures of high-risk items (for example meats), and the temperature of high-risk items when a business receives a delivery. Failure to take and store this information correctly will immensely damage an establishment’s ability to guarantee high food hygiene levels, meaning that despite sufficient levels of cleanliness, it will suffer from low hygiene ratings and the associated assumptions mentioned previously.
Unsurprisingly, the losses low hygiene scores inflict on a business's reputation is mirrored by losses of an economic nature. Studies, again by NFU Mutual, found that in addition to a third of prospective customers turning away from businesses with a food hygiene rating of 3, customers who do choose to visit expect to pay substantially less per meal. In fact, interviewed customers stated that they would only be willing to pay ₤8.97 per meal at an establishment that had a food hygiene rating of 3, compared to ₤17.31 per meal at a 5 rated establishment, a difference in revenue that amounts to 93%. In 2015, Fourth Analytics published research in The Caterer which calculated average weekly restaurant takings at £18,000. If applied to the research done by NFU Mutual then a business with a 3-star rating would need to cook and sell 2,006 meals per week to bring in this amount of turnover, while a business with a 5-star rating would only need to provide 1,040 meals. What underlines the importance of achieving and maintaining good hygiene practices is the fact that history counts for very little when it comes to public perception of food hygiene. 83% of people stated that they would not eat at an establishment that previously had a good rating, but which had rapidly changed to a poor one. This drop-off marks a dramatic and sustained loss of income for businesses, as long waits for reassessment ensure that, even if one takes immediate steps to rectify the situation, their rating will remain low for a prolonged period.
It is clear then, that even in the now distant pre-Covid world, food hygiene was seen as a significant indicator not only of cleanliness but of an establishment’s trustworthiness. Fast-forward to the present day, and society-wide hyper-awareness concerning hygiene means that food hygiene has never been more keenly appreciated, or observed, by the public. From a business perspective, this resembles a double-edged sword. Get your food hygiene right and you will be richly and justly rewarded. To get it wrong, however, marks the beginning of extremely difficult times indeed. As put by Hospitality and Food & Drink Manufacturing Specialist at NFU Mutual, Darren Seward:
‘What jumps out at me from the research is the strong link between the effect that a rating has on customers, and how this impacts profit. Your hygiene rating can directly improve or hinder your financial performance in what is a very competitive marketplace.’
So why is it that this seemingly golden opportunity to improve financial margins remains overlooked? Namely it is due to the tricky nature of change; a difficult thing to inspire in even the most contemporary of workspaces. Kitchens, as working environments steeped in history and tradition like no other, do not often fall into this category and as such, are especially resistant to this most fickle of forces. A fact epitomized by the conventional, and still widespread process of maintaining pen and paper records. This time-consuming and inaccurate manual undertaking is ill-suited to the high-octane environment of many kitchens. Paper can be misplaced, damaged, and even falsified ensuring that food hygiene ratings, despite immaculate kitchens, may remain low. Even if kept properly and carefully the storage of such vast quantities of paper records can make even the most administratively minded shudder. And yet, many kitchens continue to use this traditional method, filling desks, cabinets, and all their breathing hours with pieces of paper. Time must be eked out by staff and owners alike as they juggle job demands with administrative minefields, resulting in both being done to a lesser standard, thus unwittingly constraining both themselves and their businesses. After all who has the time or energy to tackle a mountain of paperwork after a long day in and around the kitchen? Or vice versa for that matter.
Fortunately for those open to change, willing to eradicate themselves from the torrent of paper, and wary of inviting Chef Ramsay to poke about their kitchens (who can blame them), there are alternative, less combative ways to improve an establishment’s food hygiene. leafe, an app created by the team behind EATE Collective, offers an inventive alternative to paper records, allowing a business owner to take all food hygiene records quickly and efficiently on their phone, without the need for the pesky pen and paper. These electronic documents are much more robust to editing or falsifying than their paper counterparts as each is marked with the date, month, and employee name, allowing business owners the comfort of knowing that all relevant documentation is being performed correctly, and on time. These electronic files are privately kept in the cloud and as such, are always available for review; frantic scrabbling through overfilled cabinets is no longer necessary as all documents are all in one place and accessible immediately from anywhere, at any time. This represents not only benefits for the business owner and employees but also for food hygiene inspectors who can access data for any of their businesses in real-time from anywhere in the world, somewhat negating the issue of long re-evaluation wait times mentioned previously. Furthermore, leafe, as a partially automated application, significantly reduces the time and effort necessary to complete staff onboarding, take stock, and complete other food hygiene-related procedures ensuring businesses can remain legally compliant whilst still maximizing the time staff can spend on their craft.
We have seen how mastering the, at times, daunting processes of food hygiene can almost instantaneously improve customer safety, an establishment's reputation, and financial revenue. However, it is no overstatement to say that improving food hygiene practices will impact positively every part of the kitchen - and subsequently – every facet of the business. Improving food hygiene practices, such as storing food at appropriate temperatures and having a suitable stock rotation system, can help a business minimize its food waste. The issue of waste, which promises to gain increasing traction in the face of climate change and the associated global food challenges, has dogged the hospitality sector, with widespread wasteful practices meaning that in the UK alone over 9.5 million tonnes of perfectly edible food was wasted in 2018. The economic, environmental, and social costs of such waste hardly need explaining. Yet, their interconnectedness ensures that improvements in one area (such as food hygiene), will undoubtedly have far-reaching, and oft unforeseen benefits, to the extent of significantly reducing the carbon footprint of a business and the volume of products needing to be ordered per week.
Staff shortages have also become a pertinent issue for nearly all businesses in the hospitality sector, as society begins to wrest itself from the grasp of Covid-19. Whilst it would be a stretch to say that an improvement in food hygiene would negate this issue entirely, advances in this area have not only shown a business to become a more desirable workspace - thus leading to an increase in the volume of more job applications received – but to also lead to a maximization of current employees efficiency. This results from food hygiene ratings being directly correlated with the quality of training provided to staff. Put quite simply when staff is taught how to work hygienically and improve storage methods, work activities flow better. Furthermore, staff begins to divide up tasks more efficiently, and most crucially, prevent errors that lead to jobs being repeated. Meaning that the staff training improvements necessary to improving food hygiene will have the happy side effect of enhancing all-around workspace efficiency as well.
Only a small investment of both time and money is needed to get systems and training right; leafe’s rapid onboarding system is a testament to that. Yet, these small, oft-overlooked investments in a business’s food hygiene will help to improve revenue and reduce the risk of harm to customers, alongside the plethora of secondary and tertiary benefits mentioned priorly. If ever there was a time to break from tradition and scrap the inefficient for the contemporary then it is now. The rate of change businesses – and the world – have had to adapt to over the previous 18 months is alarming. Yet, it has for the most part been successful. Society has demonstrated its innate ability to adapt to and improve the situations around us. With customers, employees, and business owners all-embracing change at unprecedented levels as we begin our first tentative steps out of the pandemic, what better time could there be to refashion our outdated business systems into transparent, traceable, and efficient tools which improve the dining experience for all?
If you are a business owner interested in exploring how leafe might work for your business, or you just wish to learn more about the basics behind food hygiene, then book a free 15 Minute Food Hygiene Basics Consulting Session at https://leafeapp.com/kitchen-resources.
