17 May 2010

Proper Ice Handling Procedures at a Restaurant

Posted by Crystal under: Equipment Maintenance & Tips; Recession Tips & Tricks .

Handling ice properly at a restaurant is as important for customers’ safety as properly handling food. In fact, restaurant employees should be trained to treat ice as food. Improper ice handling can be a cause of many unwanted consequences, such as contamination, poisoning, poor taste of ice, etc. Here are some important ice handling procedures to ensure restaurant’s customers are treated to the healthy and tasty ice product:

Clean Ice Machine regularly to avoid any mineral deposits and slime building up inside the ice machine. Poorly maintained ice machines usually have much lower efficiency, higher energy consumption, and produce low quality ice.

Dispose of Old Ice. Make sure to keep your ice fresh for your guests and dispose of old ice from time to time. Pay attention to the ice quality and immediately dispose of ice if it becomes contaminated by food, if you used it to chill bottles, or if it starts to melt.

Clean Ice Supplies. Make sure your ice supplies are cleaned and sanitized in a regular manner. This includes scoops, picks, ice totes, and ice caddies. Clean your supplies using a commercial dishwasher or hand wash them with soapy water. Once you cleaned the supplies, make sure they are stored upside down, in a clean dry place to ensure the interior stays dry.

Use Filtered Water. Install filtration system on your commercial ice machine’s water supply. Not only will filtered water produce better tasting ice and will not negatively alter the taste of drinks, filtration system will remove all bacteria and other contaminants from the water, ensuring safer dining experience for your guests. Make sure that your ice filters are changed regularly, at least once every six months. Otherwise, your ice machine will wear out faster, consume more energy, and produce lower quality product.

Ice Contaminants. It is important to educate your staff, especially those employees who are responsible for maintaining ice machines, that ice can be home to many contaminants. Such contaminants occur in ice due to poor maintenance procedures, any dissolved minerals, or residual chlorine in the water supply. Poorly maintained ice machines can have a built-up slime, which will make ice have an unappealing taste and color, and can cause illnesses. Some mineral deposits, although not harmful to health, may result in ice that appears cloudy and has an unpleasant taste. Another common contaminant – chlorine – is usually added to water to kill harmful bacteria; however, residual chlorine gives water unattractive flavor. Using filtered water and properly maintaining ice machines should tremendously help you in reducing the amount of ice contaminants in restaurant’s ice machines.

Other Safety Considerations. Make sure you use a dedicated container for transporting ice. Make it a company policy for employees to wash their hands before and after handling ice. Do not refreeze ice if it melted. Teach employees to use ice scoops, not hands to retrieve ice. Do not use glasses to scoop ice. Do not store bottles or glasses in the ice compartment.

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