Workplace illness and injuries cost restaurateurs around the country millions of pounds annually in terms of both productivity and compensation. This means you need to ensure that you prioritise creating a safe kitchen environment for your staff.
Be it a quaint coffee shop or a large fast-food franchise, a commercial kitchen is a high-risk and unpredictable environment to work in. Add to this the ongoing pandemic and there are various areas that restaurants need to work on to ensure complete safety of everyone present.
Fortunately, it is fairly easy to maintain a safe kitchen environment for your staff. Let’s take a look at some easy to implement safety tips for commercial kitchens!
1. Install Fire Doors
In a fast-paced commercial kitchen, fire is a constant hazard that puts your staff at risk. There are a number of reasons why a fire could start in your kitchen but the most common culprit is a grease fire. Sadly, water sprinkler systems aren’t very effective in suppressing grease fire.
For added safety, you need to install commercial fire doors in your restaurant to ensure that you effectively contain a fire. Once installed, you need to carry out routine fire door repair and maintenance for optimal door performance.
Additionally, look into installing other fire suppression systems that can help cut off the fuel source if the gas line is tripped or cut.
Consider installing nozzles that can help spray fire suppressant and help with doing some damage control if required.
2. Proper Attire
Staff uniforms in commercial kitchens are designed both according to rank and to keep chefs and sous chefs comfortable and clean as they prepare and plate meals for patrons. Usually, the choice of footwear is overlooked and that shouldn’t be the case. The wrong shoes can be responsible for a number of serious injuries in the kitchen and you obviously want to avoid that.
For proper safety of your staff, ensure that everyone wears closed-toed-footwear when working. Wearing closed-toe shoes will help prevent cuts from falling knives and other utensils, burns and scalds from hot oil and water, chemical burns from cleaning products and more.
The material of your staff footwear should be robust, waterproof and heavy-duty and the soles should be non-slip to prevent anyone from falling and incurring an injury.
3. Proper Ventilation
If your commercial kitchen lacks proper ventilation, the room can become hot, smokey and all in all unbearable for its inhabitants in a short time. This can quickly become an unsafe work environment for the staff in the kitchen who remain in the space for prolonged periods of time when cooking. Exposure to constant heat can put them at risk from any heat-related illnesses, not to mention respiratory issues too.
With proper ventilation in place, you can upgrade the safety and comfort of your staff to create a safe kitchen environment. Moreover, having a proper and functional ventilation system is a legal requirement that you need to comply with. If you fail to meet with this requirement, you could face consequences where you may even have to close shop.
To create a safe kitchen environment for your staff, ensure that you install the proper ventilation system and maintain it properly to ensure peak efficiency.
4. Adequate Health and Safety Training
While all industries have occupational health and safety training of some sort in place, there are certain workplace hazards that are specific to the hospitality industry. You need to ensure that you stay on top of these to create a safe kitchen environment for your employees. It would be a good idea to start with a dedicated occupational health and safety training day.
With COVID-19 to think about as well, a proper training seminar can help address a number of issues including social distancing, hygiene, proper food handling and storage techniques amongst other things.
Call Doorway Services to Install Fire Doors
Commercial kitchens are perhaps one of the most dangerous environments to work in which makes kitchen safety a top priority. As your staff works in close proximity to flames and fuel, a fire breaking out is always a concern.
Call the expert door installers at Doorway Services to take kitchen safety up a notch. Additionally, incorporate the tips mentioned above to protect your employees and your business from any potential harm while ensuring that you maintain your productivity!
Give us a call to find out more about business doors!
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