There are three good reasons for implementing a food safety plan at your restaurant. It is a good business practice, a good use of time, and it will put you in good stead with your friendly health inspector.
When Heidi Romich, owner and operator of Heidi’s Restaurant, a 60-seat, 15-employee establishment in Cranbrook, first heard of the provincially mandated Food Safety Plan program, she was supportive of the concept but wary of the amount of work necessary to put the program in place. The program is intended to minimize food contamination through process control.
“I felt a bit overwhelmed at first when I thought the process for receiving, storing, and preparing each and every menu item had to be documented down to the last detail," she says.
However, after sitting down with the local health inspector, Heidi soon learned that the task was not as daunting as she had first thought. She selected several menu items that required different handling and cooking procedures, and then she documented the process by which these items were handled and prepared in her restaurant. In total, she spent between six and eight hours working out a plan that was appropriate for her business; the time could be less for restaurants that use a lot of prepackaged foods.
In hindsight, Heidi says that it was a good investment of her time. Now she not only complies with the law but she also has a documented and standardized process that can be followed by new employees when there is turnover in the kitchen. This is obviously important to an owner who is ultimately responsible for the safety and well-being of her customers, but who also needs to delegate the day-to-day duties to her staff.
Heidi also thinks that the documentation and record-keeping required of the program is advantageous in the event of a complaint: “Sometimes restaurants are blamed for an illness caused by improper food preparation at [the customer's] home. In these cases it's nice to rely on solid, factual information that comes from the food safety plan."
Larry Copeland, director of Food Protection Services with the BC Centre for Disease Control says that "BC is the first province in Canada to require food-service operations to have food-safety and sanitation plans. This is consistent with the province's commitment to modernizing its food safety system."
Larry would like people to understand that when a restaurant changes hands, the new owners need to obtain a new health license and may require a new food-safety plan if there are changes made to the menu. He goes on to say that "having a plan is a good first step, but owners need to ensure that the plan is put into practical use.”
For further information about food safety plans, contact your local Health Inspector or visit the BC Centre for Disease Control website.
