How To Keep A Commercial Kitchen Clean
Keeping a commercial kitchen clean needs to be one of the biggest priorities of every kitchen worker. Maintaining a cleaning protocol that is followed to the letter is crucial to avoid any health code violations, and to make cleaning much more manageable.
Be sure that, no matter how you choose to keep a commercial kitchen clean, you’re not missing any important areas that need to be cleaned.
Clean Appliances Thoroughly
It’s not enough to just make sure the surface area of your appliances are wiped down at the end of the night. Every nook and cranny of an appliance, or anything that touches food, needs to be cleaned.
While it might not be possible to get every spot of a large appliance cleaned each day, it should be a priority to do so as often as possible to avoid any buildup of dirt, grime, and food particles.
Keep Food Prep Surfaces Sanitized
Sanitizing and cleaning food prep surfaces every day is a must to prevent bacteria spreading throughout the kitchen and eliminating the possibility of food-borne illnesses. An instance of food poisoning can have disastrous consequences for a commercial kitchen.
Outside of keeping these surfaces clean of debris and other contaminants, be sure that staff is not cross contaminating any food they are prepping before the kitchen is open.
Schedule And Delegate
Everyone working in the kitchen should pitch in and help maintain cleanliness of the kitchen. After all, everyone is responsible for creating the mess. In order to make cleaning feel like less of a burdensome chore, having tasks scheduled and split up amongst workers can help split up the work evenly.
Make sure the schedule is visible to everyone, and make sure it’s explained to everyone the importance of staying on top of the cleaning protocols as much as possible.
Don’t Neglect Underutilized Surfaces
You know to clean cookware, appliances, preparation surfaces, and the floor. It’s also important to be wiping down walls, exhaust hoods, doors, handles, and even the ceiling. As you use the kitchen, grease, smoke, and various other particles get spread throughout every surface of the kitchen.
Even though you may not use these parts, or they may not come into direct contact with food, over time all the buildup that moves through the kitchen can lead to stains, discolorations, and eventually, bad odors.
Get A Professional Deep Clean
Having professional commercial kitchen cleaners, like PHS Interclean, come in once in a while to do a thorough clean from top to bottom can help give staff a break. It’s also ideal to have this done in instances where cleaning has been neglected, and you want to start the cleaning process from scratch.
Make Cleaning A Daily Priority
It’s much less overwhelming to keep a commercial kitchen clean when you have tasks you complete each day. Some bigger jobs can be done less frequently, but maintaining the cleanliness and order of a kitchen each day with small, simple, and delegated tasks creates a more positive, happy kitchen.
These small steps taken daily become easy habits to keep up with, thus making cleaning much more tolerable.
Final Thoughts
If everyone working in the kitchen participates in keeping it clean, sanitized, and organized, suddenly a task that can be extremely daunting is much more manageable. That said, getting some professional help to do a deep clean occasionally can make a big difference as well.
It will take effort to maintain a clean kitchen, but it’s a responsibility that needs to be shared amongst everyone who uses the space. A clean kitchen is one that makes preparing and serving food a much more enjoyable task for everyone involved.
