Keeping Your Food Safe for Your Customers

If your restaurant fails to provide safe food for its customers, you pose a risk to both yourself and to the diners. Unsafe food can injure, sicken or even kill certain diners. Therefore, restaurants have to protect their products at all times.

Most restaurant liability policies cover damages from food-borne illness or contamination that harms clients. However, there are exceptions to this rule. You might not be able to get coverage should your negligent actions cause this damage. Furthermore, restaurant insurance can’t help you recover from a damaged reputation in case of bad food.

Take precautions to protect your food from damages that could harm diners and staff:

• Always enforce local health and sanitation laws. These may include hand washing and food storage requirements.
• Clean and disinfect your storage, preparation areas and ranges at frequent intervals. Most restaurants touch up these areas after every mealtime and before closing.
• Always clean your dining area, salad bars and other common areas. These places can pose risks to food as well.
• Note on the menu food containing common allergens like nuts, shellfish or berries. Most restaurants usually list the contents of all dishes on menu items.
• Under-cooked or poorly prepared meat could harm a diner. Never under-cook certain meets, like chicken. When cooking meat to order, such as steak, always cook the meat to the diner’s specifications. However, diners should always know that rare or under-cooked meat might cause illness. Most restaurants have to notify diners of this risk on their menus.
• Always control the temperature and humidity settings or your refrigeration systems. This will help you to preserve refrigerated items.
• Wash, clean and store all perishable items in refrigerated areas. Check these items at frequent intervals for signs of mold or spoilage.
• Prepare meat, vegetables, and other food groups separately. Cross-contamination can harm diners. For example, never prepare a steak in a dish previously containing nuts. The steak could contain nut contamination when you serve it, and the diner might have a nut allergy.
• Only hire cooks, kitchen staff and wait staff who know how to safely prepare and handle food. Their proper attention will help ensure that diners get their food safely.

Food liability risks are common. But, your restaurant shouldn’t have to suffer because of an outbreak of food-borne illness. The proper restaurant insurance can help you.