Restaurants, coffee shops, snack bars and fine dining restaurants are all offering a variety of food choices to suit every taste and often doing so seven days a week.

Each type of business has its own requirements for warewashing; with a wide variety of items requiring washing with varied soiling and stain removing products. We all know that kitchens can be high pressure environments so here at Holchem we offer our customers the best advice to help them achieve the specific levels of hygiene required.  Customers who don’t have positive experiences won’t return so it’s imperative that the correct procedures are followed at all times. 

At Holchem every customer benefits from a combination of service levels and engineering know how backed up by scientific knowledge developed in our state of the art labs at Holchem HQ.

Our teams on the road travel thousands of miles every year visiting our customers to advise and help on best practice – often knowing the intricacies of a kitchen as well as the head chef.

Here’s a snapshot of our top tips on how to ensure a clean and efficient warewashing area to minimise cross contamination, the organisation of the washing area and its operation.

1. The washing area must be separate from the food preparation areas.
2. The “clean” side must be separated from the “dirty” side, to prevent the cleaned crockery from becoming soiled again. Dirty and clean crockery must not intersect.
3. The time during which food residue can dry onto the dishes should be kept as short as possible to prevent bacteria build up and to ease the cleaning of the items.  Remove leftover food and waste from the items before washing.
4. Pre-sort the items and use the correct racks.
5. Load the washing racks so that the items do not overlap. It must be possible for the water jets to reach all surfaces; covered or shadowed surfaces cannot be cleaned.
6. Soak cutlery before you wash it.
7. Use different staff for loading dirty items into the machine and removing the cleaned items from the machine.
8. Allow cleaned items to air dry before storing. Do not use tea towels.
9. Staff removing the cleaned items must have clean hands or wear clean gloves.
10. Remove damaged items from the washing cycle.
11. Plastic items must be heat resistant, resistant to deformation and free from hairline cracks.
12. Water should be able to run off the items, so that the items can dry quickly.
13. Items with heavy deposits, such as burn-on or heavy tannin stains should be hand cleaned prior to machine washing.

Do you have any questions about best practice hygiene in your kitchen? – please get in touch with the Holchem team on 01706 222288