Several countries have already lifted off lockdowns and community quarantines. This is in spite of the fact that the coronavirus disease COVID-19 has not seen its end yet. In countries like the Philippines, Spain, South Korea, Germany and New Zealand, their governments have started imposing lighter restriction— due either to ‘curve flattening’ or in order to save businesses and the economy. As part of the food industry, it is a must for someone to be responsible with or without the threat of coronavirus disease. If your food establishment has recently resumed operation, you should implement these:
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Signs to spread awareness of COVID-19
Signs or graphics must be posted at your establishment to ensure all working staff and customers are aware. They may be about social distancing, use of sanitizers, proper hand washing or wearing of mask at all times. Place them somewhere that’s easy to locate.
Hand washing and hand wash stations
If you are the owner of the food establishment, remind your employees about proper handwashing and how effective it is in combating harmful microorganisms including coronaviruses. Here’s the proper way to wash hands:
Proper hand washing
- Wet hands with cleaning running water
- Lathe hands with soap. Lather also between your fingers, under the nails and the backs of the hands. You may also use alcohol-based sanitizer that is last least 60% alcohol
- Scrub your hands for least 20 seconds. Singing the Happy Birthday songs twice helps
- Rinse hands under running water
- Dry hands with towel or air dry
Make sure hand wash station is well-stocked of soap and sanitizer (hands-free), paper towel and trash bins (hands-free). I suggest upgrading to totally hands-free hand wash station (from faucet to toilet bins) to prevent people from having direct contact to hand washer surfaces as it is one source of contamination.
Informative signs must also be located in every hand washing area. Ones with graphics are eye-catching.
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Promote social distancing
Yup! The pandemic is still here so your food establishment must still practice social distancing at all times. Apply something that will prevent people from getting too close to each other. You may put tapes on the floor (at least 6 feet in between or 6 foot-distance rule) at the queue area. Put up signs on the wall to make sure all persons are well- aware (customers and workers). Some establishments have placed partitions too.
There must be restriction to the number of people in rather smaller rooms like kitchen and office to comply with the 6 foot-distance rule.
Food establishments must still limit operations. Services like buffets and salad bars that need customers to use common utensils are still not recommended.
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Promote food hygiene
Every after use, equipment like food preparation utensils and food contact surfaces like knives and cutting boards must be washed, cleaned and sanitized.
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Disinfectants must always be easily located. Use them to disinfect surfaces that are repeatedly touched like door knobs and checkout counters. Encourage all staff to clean these surfaces and other areas more frequently.
Encourage customers and visitors to use sanitizers.
Food deliveries
Food deliveries are more common today and in high demand. Although there is no proof that coronavirus can be transmitted through food packaging or how long viruses survive in specific surfaces according to Food Standards, it is still better to not take any risk.
Implement no contact delivery instead of ringing bells or knocking on doors and have the foods change hands directly. The delivery man may simply leave the order on the doorstep or at another safe place and notify the customer that the order is ready for him or her to collect.
Companies have started opting for cashless payment like paying via credit card via online paying services like Paymaya and Paypal. There are third-party delivery apps with integrated cashless payment method available that you can use.
Although some industries have already been given green light to continue their operation, the fight against the pandemic COVID-19 isn’t over yet. These tips in this post, should be able to help you prevent further spread of the deadly novel coronavirus.
As of this writing, the pandemic has already reached 4.2 million cases around the world.Visit the website of World Health Organization (WHO) to keep yourself abreast of updates on COVID-19.
