Clean catering : a handbook on premises, equipment, and practices for the promotion of hygiene in catering establishments.

  • Great Britain. Ministry of Health.
Date:
1963
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clean catering : a handbook on premises, equipment, and practices for the promotion of hygiene in catering establishments. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/112 (page 4)
    Figures 1 and 2 indicate what is considered to be a good hygienic arrange- ment ; and it is suggested that caterers should study them as recommendations rather than rules. The key-note in a catering establishment should be cleanliness; and the premises should therefore be- planned in whatever manner will make it easy to keep the place clean. The greater the distance over which food has to be carried, and the more often it has to be handled, the greater the chance of its becoming contami- nated. Therefore, the ideal to aim at is to have everything moving forward in orderly progression—from delivery to food preparation, .cooking, service and washing-up. The lay-out should be planned with a clear idea of the purpose of every room. Miscellaneous storerooms and unnecessary passages should be avoided. A good deal could be done to improve many catering establishments if some partition walls were removed and some dark, lumber-littered passages eliminated. A goods entrance, separate from the customers’ entrance, is essential for hygienic planning. The most convenient arrangement is for this goods entrance to open from a yard, so situated that delivery vans can pull right up to the door of the building. The yard should have an impervious and even surface, a water standpipe, tap and washing-down hose, raised and covered accommo- dation for refuse bins and swill bins, and adequate drainage. If solid fuel is used the stote should be in the yard and bulk oil fuel should be kept completely separate from any food or utensil store and in accordance with any directions given by fire or safety officers of the local authority. Close to the goods entrance should be the vegetable storage room, which should be cool, dry, well ventilated and large enough to allow for orderly storage. It is convenient for this room to be against the wall of the yard, partly so that the floor can be sloped to enable water used for washing down to drain to a gulley and partly so that it can have an entrance direct from the yard—which will keep some dirt off the rest of the premises. (For storage of vegetables, see page 48. For cleaning, see pages 69-72) The work of vegetable preparation (whether done in a separate room or in a zone of the kitchen) should be carried out close to the vegetable store and close to the yard and refuse bins—so that most of the dirt which usually accompanies raw vegetables does not get further into the premises than is absolutely necessary. There is an increasing tendency to deal in precleaned vegetables and if such are received as goods inward they should be placed separate from uncleaned vegetables in the same store. Near the entrance should come the dry food store, which should be fly- proofed by fixing removable screens over windows and door openings; in addition, the walls should be treated with residual insecticides as advised on page 24. The room should be dry, well lit and ventilated and at least 7 ft. 6 in. high. If there is no room for both a window and a door opening on to the yard, the door should have a glass panel. This room should be used exclusively as a store and therefore water is not essential, but water for cleaning should be close at hand. Prepacked deep frozen vegetables are also now regularly received into stock and sub zero holding cabinets should be available in the dry food store. These cabinets should be such as comply with British Standard specifications and allow for rotation of stock, be covered