Food Safety: Best Practices for Prep

Food Safety: Best Practices for Prep

by | Sep 22, 2015 | IndiNews

September is National Food Safety Month, so, in honor of good food practices, here are some best practices to follow when thawing frozen foods, holding them at the desired temperatures, and prepping produce.

Best practices for thawing food, by method

  • Refrigeration: Thaw TCS food at 41 ̊Fahrenheit (5 ̊Celsius) or lower to limit pathogen growth. Plan ahead when thawing large items, such as turkeys. They can take several days to defrost.
  • Microwave oven: You can safely thaw food in a microwave, but only if the food is going to be cooked immediately. Be warned: large items, such as roasts or turkeys, might not thaw well with this method.
  • Cooking: Thaw food as part of the cooking process.
  • Running water: Submerge food under running, drinkable water at 70°Fahrenheit (21°Celsius) or lower.  Never let the temperature of the food go above 41°Fahrenheit (5°Celsius) for longer than four hours.

Tips on holding food at desired temperatures

  • Hold foods at their correct temperatures. TCS foods should be held at the correct internal temperatures. Cold food should be held at 41°Fahrenheit (5°Celsius) or lower, and hot food should be 135°Fahrenheit (57°Celsius) or higher.
  • Check temperatures regularly. Timing is essential. Make sure you check food temperatures at least every four hours. Toss  food that’s not 41°Fahrenheit (5°Celsius) or lower, or 135°Fahrenheit (57°Celsius) or higher.
  • Use food covers and sneeze guards. Keep food covered to help maintain temperatures.  Covers and sneeze guards also help protect the food from contaminants.
  • Use hot-holding equipment properly. Don’t reheat food in them unless they are built to do so.

Five rules to follow when prepping produce

  1. Avoid cross-contamination by preventing fruit and vegetables from touching surfaces exposed to raw meat, seafood or poultry.
  1. Wash produce thoroughly under running water before cutting, cooking, or combining it with other ingredients. Don’t forget to make sure the water is a little warmer than the produce, remove the outer leaves of leafy greens, and pull lettuce or spinach completely apart, and rinse thoroughly.
  1. Don’t mix different items or multiple batches of the same item together if you’resoaking or storing produce in standing water or an ice-water slurry.
  1. Store items, such as sliced melons, cut tomatoes and cut leafy greens, at41°Fahrenheit (5°Celsius) or lower.
  1. Don’t serve raw seed sprouts if you primarily serve high-risk populations.

Via National Restaurant Association

Have more food safety tips? Share them below.

Happy safe cooking!

It’s Tuesday a.k.a Industry Night at Nativ Hotel

It’s Tuesday a.k.a Industry Night at Nativ Hotel

by | Aug 11, 2015 | IndiNews

To all those who work in the Service Industry: this one’s for you. Welcome to NATIV Industry Night, the Tuesday night party dedicated to the Service Industry.

NATIV Industry Night is a weekly celebration that kicked off in early July as a way to say thanks to the people who feed us, cloth us, beautify us, pamper us, etc. day in and day out.

Now’s your chance to get special treatment: live music, food & drink specials and the occasional surprise giveaway!

The party starts at 7 pm at Pourtions Keg + Kitchen, NATIV Hotel’s on-site bar and restaurant with a 20-tap, self-pour beer wall. Start the night off with $3 sliders, $5 wines, and $5 specialty cocktails, while grooving to an acoustic set from 7-9 pm.

Then it’s on to the main event at The Lobby Bar, where there’s more live music and more specials! Drink up with $3 domestics, $4 imports, $4 wells, and $100 bottles all night long. And, you’ll never know what other awesome surprises may be in store for you throughout the night.

So come get some much-needed R&R tonight at NATIV Industry Night! You deserve it.

 

 

Denver Ranked #1 Place For Business and Careers, and Sirvo is Proof

Denver Ranked #1 Place For Business and Careers, and Sirvo is Proof

by | Jul 31, 2015 | Company News

Stephanie Maxwell talks Sirvo and what it’s like to start a business in Denver, named El Jefe onForbes list of Best Places for Business and Careers.

To get the inside info on what makes Denver’s business climate the best in the country, local news channel 7 visited Galvanize, a workspace for tech startups and home to Sirvo’s offices.

“I think what you’re seeing is today’s workforce is looking for places they can really blend work life and play. Denver is one of those places where you can do that,” said Ben Deda, Executive VP of Marketing and Business at Galvenize, a small business incubator in the city.

Another of those small businesses is Sirvo.

Founder Stephanie Maxwell created the business to connect service businesses with potential employees. Maxwell says many service businesses have high turnover rates and have trouble keeping their business staffed.

“I wanted to create a network for people to access jobs and I wanted to give businesses a very cheap and easy way to put their jobs online,” said Maxwell.

To read full article and watch the clip, click here.

 

Why Sirvo is the Place to Find Jobs and Hire in the Service Industry

Why Sirvo is the Place to Find Jobs and Hire in the Service Industry

by | Jul 15, 2015 | Sirvo Stories

The service industry employs 30.7 million people nationwide. That’s 1 in every 10! And, since the service industry is the “fastest growing sector in terms of the number of people employed”, that’s a stat that’s on the rise.

But there’s a problem that’s also on the rise: recruiting and hiring employees within the service industry.

Open calls, social networks, and large job boards such as Craigslist just aren’t cutting it.

Job seekers apply to countless numbers of job listings without the chance to gather more information about the job or business to see if it’s a quality fit for them. And there’s no good way to tell if a job is an opportunity or a dead end when you’re looking at an ad on Facebook.

Employers and hiring managers are spending their time sifting through piles of paper just to find a suitable candidate when they should be spending time considering job seekers who are qualified for the position in terms of skills, experience, and culture fit.

And it’s a waste of time and money for both sides, because although these methods are great in terms of quantity, they don’t do much when it comes to quality.

Sirvo is the solution.

Sirvo is a recruitment platform for the service industry. Connecting employers, professionals, and job seekers.

Professionals that are looking for a job (or something on the side) create profiles that not only show off their professional accomplishments but also their shining personality. Can you say the same about (literally) one-dimensional, paper resumes? Doubt it.

Businesses create company profiles and job listings in a matter of minutes. Full-time or event staff, managers or promo models, in a pinch or ongoing – we’ve got you covered. You can even close job listings, then reuse them later. All for a fraction of the cost of traditional hiring channels.

By combining social, jobs, and streamlining the application process, Sirvo is leapfrogging the industry into the modern age of connectivity. With just a click: apply to jobs, organize candidates, message members, and more. Sirvo does the busy work, so you can get back to what matters.

“Sirvo is where you go to connect with your service industry peers, because whether you’re working, searching, hiring, or influencing within the industry, we’re all part of this dynamic community that is in need of a home base.”

Interested in our beginning? Check us out at https://gosirvo.com to sign up for beta.

Don’t Let Food Allergies Drive Customers From Your Restaurant

Don’t Let Food Allergies Drive Customers From Your Restaurant

by | Jul 3, 2015 | Business Toolkit, Management

With more than 250 food allergens identified, and 15 million Americans diagnosed with food allergies, it’s no small task ensuring your restaurant’s food safety protocols are up to par, a must if the hope is to continue serving this large market.

To help those dealing with food allergies feel confident about their safety while dining in your restaurant, here are the key takeaways from an educational session at the 2015 National Restaurant Association Hotel-Motel show during which a panel of food safety experts shared their food allergen acumen :

  • Train your staff how to handle food allergens. “Incorporate your employees into your process. They start buying into it and feel more confident in what they’re doing,” says William Weichelt, ServSafe director.
  • A certified manager should be present during every shift and directly involved in all instances in which food allergies are a known concern. He or she acts as a knowledge center for customers as well as a resource for employees.
  • Never guess. Speaking of certified managers, if employees are asked a food allergy question that they can’t answer, ensure that they reach out to a manager who can.  If your restaurant cannot confidently satisfy a guest’s request, expressly communicate this. This outcome, although not ideal, is much safer for all involved rather than the risky alternative.
  • Make ingredient lists available to guests. They know their allergy better than you do, and thus will likely know the names of ingredients or sub-ingredients that may be red flags for them.
  • Sub-out widely used allergens. If possible, isolate ingredients or recipes that could trigger a common allergy. For example, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro now uses wheat-free soy in lieu of regular soy in all of its marinades.
  • Create a back-of-house system for allergen-specific equipment. Consider using color-coded, allergen-specific plateware, prepware and other equipment.
  • Invest in allergy-specific technology. Natalie Krusemeier, director of training for the 7-unit, Chicago-based Colonial Café, says the company’s POS system has an allergen key. When pressed by a front-of-house staffer, the back of the house knows of the allergy, and a manager then becomes involved.

For additional information regarding food allergens, reference FARE, Food Allergy and Research and Education group, and CHART, the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers.

This article originally appeared on www.restaurant.org and can be found here.