Chapter

14

Food Preparation and Safety

In This Chapter

As a business owner, you’re responsible for the safety of your employees, patrons, purveyors, and neighbors. And as a food truck owner you have the additional burden of assuring the safety and cleanliness of your kitchen, food products, and truck. This can be a challenge even for the most seasoned food truckers. As a first-timer, always remember that knowledge, planning, and persistent upkeep are key.

In this chapter, I examine some of the basics of food preparation safety, food storage, and maintaining a clean work environment. I show you what to do, what to avoid, and what might happen if you don’t pay attention.

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of safety in the design and operation of your business, so take your time and take notes. I recommend keeping extra copies of this chapter on your truck and wherever else you prepare food for your business so you can reference the information easily.

It’s easy to take safety for granted because enforcing it properly requires attention to detail. Don’t fall into that trap. Nothing is more important than maintaining a safe environment for you, your employees, and your customers.

Working with Your Chef

If you’re the executive chef on your food truck, you’ll be responsible for overseeing all the preparation and storage of your food and maintaining the cleanliness of your kitchen. If you’ve hired or are partnering with a chef, you’re still responsible for making sure your staff adhere to all the necessary safety and hygienic standards I talk about in this chapter.

Tip

When it comes to food safety, inspections that you perform yourself are as important as those performed by health inspectors. Performing regular random walkthroughs of your truck and commissary is a necessity. Your local health department should have self-inspection forms on their website that you can download and use. By doing self-inspections, you’ll know your business better than the health inspector and can protect your business and your clientele.

Not all chefs are created equal. While we automatically expect professional chefs to be obsessively clean and knowledgeable about food safety, many fall far short of the mark in this regard. Thousands of people get food poisoning from restaurants and food trucks every year; that means hundreds of chefs are neglecting this critical aspect of their duties and hundreds of owners aren’t paying attention to what’s happening in their own kitchens.

When hiring or partnering with an executive chef, make sure to ask him about food safety and cleanliness. Here are some things to look for:

What health department grades/scores has he received in the past? Ask him to provide this information or do the research on this on your own. Most cities post the details of inspections on their websites, so you can see exactly what your chef did wrong.

Does she have a cavalier attitude toward safety and cleanliness or does she seem to truly appreciate the importance of it? A good chef will care about safety not just out of fear of getting in trouble but because she takes pride in her operation. Does the cleanliness of your chef’s kitchen seem to be a source of pride for her?

Can your chef demonstrate a solid knowledge and understanding of local health department guidelines? He should know these by heart and be able to spot a violation without having to refer back to the guidelines.

Does your chef demonstrate outstanding personal hygiene? Are her nails clean, her hair groomed, her clothing clean and pressed? Often the care your chef puts into her own appearance will reflect the care she puts into maintaining a clean work environment.

Is your chef someone who can submit to authority and endure scrutiny? Chefs are notoriously hot-headed, an unpleasant stereotype that I’ve found to be largely true. You’re his boss (or partner) and he needs to recognize and respect your authority. He should have a thick skin and be able to take criticism, especially when it comes to adhering to food safety guidelines.

At the end of the day, you’re responsible for everything that happens on your truck and all of the food that comes out of it. If a patron gets sick from your product or if your truck is cited for a health code violation, the blame falls on your shoulders. If you aren’t leading the kitchen yourself, you must still maintain a very hands-on approach to making sure your executive chef is adhering to all food safety standards.

Too many restaurant and food truck owners turn a blind eye to their employees’ neglect of safety standards in their facilities. Their excuse invariably is that they didn’t think it was their responsibility: because they hired an executive chef to deal with all that stuff, it’s her problem. Wrong! It’s her problem, and now it’s your problem, too. City health inspectors don’t care who is in charge of making sure everything is clean. Nor do patrons who become ill from tainted food. The blame will always fall on you, the owner, and it should: you’re in charge and food safety is ultimately and without excuse your responsibility.

Tip

Food can be contaminated anywhere along the supply chain. It’s important to purchase food only from approved suppliers and personally inspect all incoming deliveries. Learn to identify signs of spoilage in fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, and poultry. You can’t afford to let someone else’s mistakes ruin your business.

Learn the health code guidelines and inspect the kitchen yourself. If you find a problem, discuss it with your chef immediately. If he or she tries to make excuses, you may not have chosen the right person for the job. Make it clear to your chef and your staff that laziness and negligence regarding health won’t be tolerated. Remember that nothing—I repeat, nothing—is more important in the food industry than safety and cleanliness.

Food safety classes are offered across the country. Require your head kitchen cook and prep cook to take the classes. Cashiers also can take a less intense class.

Keeping Your Kitchen Clean and Safe

Keeping your kitchen free of common dangers and health code violations is a constant battle that requires knowledge, dedicated attention, and diligence. The most common threats, which can be avoided when proper food safety standards are in place, include bacterial contamination of food, food spoilage, and pest infestation (which brings a whole list of additional health concerns).

You must be proactive in your approach to food safety and cleanliness. Don’t think you can get away with doing the bare minimum and hope for the best. The consequences of one food poisoning incident, one bacterial infection, or one significant health code violation can be very expensive and potentially irreparable to the reputation of your business. You must take pride in how you maintain your equipment, facilities, and, especially, your food.

Health code guidelines are different in every city. It’s crucial that you know your local laws and standards, as your city’s health department will evaluate your truck and publish a report. In some cities, like Los Angeles and New York, health officials issue letter grades—A, B, or C—that restaurants and food trucks are required to post in their windows. I’ve seen the way even a B grade can embarrass and negatively affect the business of a great restaurant, even when it’s the result of seemingly trivial violations. Of course when it comes to health, no risk is ever trivial. Visit the webpage of your city or state’s health department for a detailed list of regulations so you know exactly what to expect when inspectors come knocking on your door. And they will.

In the following sections, I explain the basics of food safety, including how to ensure cleanliness and the easiest steps to prevent cross-contamination.

Battling Illness

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, “Know thy enemy,” and in the war against food-borne illness, it’s useful to know which bacteria pose the greatest threat to your customers and how to prevent the growth and spread of each one. The three major bacteria that you must be prepared to fight are as follows:

Truck Tales

The Poppa & Goose Food Truck along with its sister truck, Goosebeary’s, formerly located in Massachusetts, were shut down in November 2001 because of multiple cases of food poisoning. Six people were sent to the hospital. The associated restaurant that acted as the truck’s commissary was also shut down due to unsanitary conditions. This incident not only affected the victims and the businesses: it created fear among customers and gave food trucks a negative reputation in that area. Protect the food truck community and keep your truck safe!

Bacteria grow and thrive between 40°F and 140°F. Most health code regulators require food to be stored above or below that range. No food, whether or not it’s particularly susceptible to food-borne illness, should be kept within this temperature range for more than two hours. A piece of raw poultry that’s lightly contaminated by campylobacter and salmonella will become exponentially more infected if stored between 40°F and 140°F for even an hour.

Here are some essential steps to ensuring the safety of your food:

Cook all foods to the proper temperature. That means poultry is cooked all the way through and beef products (especially ground beef) are cooked enough to prevent E. coli from spreading. Once the food is cooked, make sure it’s immediately stored well above or below the 40°F to 140°F range.

Never defrost frozen products to room temperature. Move frozen foods to the refrigerator or place them under cold running water to thaw. Because bacteria thrive between 40°F and 140°F, leaving any product at room temperature—even if it’s frozen—is a serious health code violation.

If you aren’t serving cooked foods immediately, chill them below 40°F as quickly as possible. Divide the food into small containers and soak them in ice baths. Some bacteria are heat resistant, so cooked foods are just as susceptible to breeding food-borne illnesses as raw ones if they aren’t stored at the proper temperatures.

Don’t reheat foods multiple times. This can actually worsen the presence of certain bacteria. After a few weeks on the truck, you’ll get a sense of how much product you’ll need to reheat on any given day. Until then, discard any leftovers that have been reheated once. With experience, the amount of waste will diminish.

Use thermometers. It’s important to monitor the temperatures of stored foods, both hot and cold, and to determine the temperature of cooked meats and fish to make sure they’re heated thoroughly.

Establish a rotational system for your inventory so you always use your oldest product first. This strategy will not only protect your customers from spoiled ingredients but also save you money, because you’ll throw away less food.

Implement and enforce a mandatory hand-washing policy for all of your employees. They should wash their hands after using the restroom, handling trash or raw foods, smoking, coughing or sneezing, eating or drinking, or touching their hair, faces, open wounds, or any bodily fluids. Your staff should use plastic or latex gloves when handling any food products and you should have hand sanitizer on the truck for their use, as well as for your customers and yourself.

Preventing Cross-Contamination

Cross-contamination occurs when foods and surfaces that might be contaminated with bacteria come into contact with foods and surfaces that otherwise wouldn’t be a potential threat. If you use a pair of tongs to move raw chicken and then use them to toss a mixed salad without disinfecting them first, for example, your salad is now likely infected with salmonella and poses just as great a danger to your customers as a piece of the raw chicken.

Because cross-contamination is, by definition, accidental, you really need to take steps to ensure the safety of your customers. The following suggestions are industry standard for protecting your food and equipment.

Food Safety on the Truck and Off

You have two main environments to police for food safety, your truck and your commissary. It’s important that you have a trained individual present in both spaces at all times, monitoring the work being done. The local health department will spot check and approve your truck setup and commissary, but it’s up to you to enforce the rules and procedures on a daily basis. There are no exceptions when it comes to food safety. Just because you’re on the truck and busy with all aspects of your business doesn’t mean you have an excuse. There’s no room for error when the health and safety of your customers is on the line.

Here are some specific issues to think about regarding on-truck food safety:

Cleaning Supplies

Maintaining a clean kitchen is the single most important factor in preventing food-borne illness. It’s also the job no one likes to do. It’s your responsibility as owner and manager of your business to make sure that your truck is thoroughly and routinely cleaned. Diligent cleaning not only prevents contamination but keeps you aware of your inventory so that no food ever sits forgotten in the back of the refrigerator. If you clean consistently, you won’t have to wonder whether your product is fresh; you’ll know that it is.

To do a proper job of cleaning your truck, you’ll need to invest in the right supplies. Here are some of the bare necessities for any kitchen:

Beep! Beep!

All cleaning agents contain dangerous chemicals. You and your staff must be aware of the possibility of chemical residue on food prep surfaces and rinse them off thoroughly so that no ingredients ever come into contact with any cleaning product. Be sure to store your cleaning supplies far from your food, especially fresh produce, which can absorb toxic fumes from bottled chemicals.

Enforce a very strict cleaning schedule on every shift. If you allow dirt and grease to accumulate, you’re not only in violation of your local health standards but you’re putting your customers’ lives at risk and inviting pests to nest in your kitchen. It may be helpful to type up a list of what needs to be done and post it on the wall, or simply keep a checklist for your personal use. Do whatever works for you, so long as you see the job all the way through and inspect it afterward.

Do a walk-through of your kitchen and note everything that needs to be cleaned and how often. Some things require an occasional more thorough scrubbing in addition to daily maintenance. If you’re inexperienced and don’t know when certain equipment would typically need to be cleaned, consult your executive chef or the owner’s manual for each appliance. Don’t, however, leave it up to your staff to decide when to clean. It’s always up to you to enforce a strict cleaning schedule.

Your cleaning schedule for each shift should include:

Once-a-week chores:

For weekly chores, choose the day of the week when your inventory is lowest; it will speed up the process and help you gauge how much food you need to order from your purveyors.

Tip

Use different color-coded towels for different types of jobs. Use one color for wiping down food-prep surfaces and another for handling dangerous chemicals, for example.

One a month, do these chores:

Your chores for every six months should include:

Keeping your truck clean should be a matter of pride for you. Remember that the safety and cleanliness of your kitchen is a reflection of your leadership and will all be reflected in the final product you sell to your customers. Don’t wait for a bad report from the health department or for a customer to get sick. Take the necessary precautions from day one and relax knowing that you’ve created a safe, clean, and profitable environment for you and your staff.

Emergencies

Every city and state has its own laws and regulations regarding fire exits and emergency readiness. You’ll have to research local policies to determine what kind of hardware to put on your doors and what sort of emergency equipment or supplies you may be required to keep on your truck. There are, however, a few items that every food truck must have on board:

Beep! Beep!

Never offer any medication from the truck first-aid kit or your personal supply to a customer. If he or she has an allergic reaction, you and your company can be held legally responsible.

The Least You Need to Know