FOOD SERVICE WORKER COURSE – PROPER FOOD STORAGE RULES
Food safety is one of the fastest-growing fields worldwide. The Canadian federal and provincial government authorities have realized the need to implement measures to ensure it.
11,000 Canadian nationals visit hospitals every year due to food allergies, reactions, and food-borne illnesses speaks volumes about it. Every second family in Canada has a member who is allergic to a specific food.
For this reason, Canadian federal and provincial government authorities encourage employers to hire food service worker certificate holders.
These certified professionals have technical and transferable skills, effective communication skills to handle customers, knowledge of sanitation and safety practices, and skills to deal with medical emergencies under critical circumstances.
Certified food service workers understand nutrition and health and the quantity of food preparation. Another important thing they have is CPR/first aid certification. The most important thing they have is complete knowledge about the role of the food service worker certificate holders to help keep customers’ and consumers’ health safe.
The List of Reasons Does Not End Here Only
Like so many professional areas today, the food industry needs skilled professionals.
Those who complete their dietary aid course from a reputed Canadian institute or college can reap many benefits, including…
- A variety of professional opportunities for graduates, including part-time or full-time roles as a server, bartender, staff member, cook, baker, food service worker, food service helper, dietary aide, food preparer, caterer, and food delivery professional.
- Employment opportunities in commercial kitchens, long-term care homes, retirement homes, daycares, and quick service outlets.
- Access to practical or theoretical knowledge from industry-experienced trainers in the environment at the international level.
- A chance to generate return-on-investment on tuition fees within the same year for the food business.
- Related to the above, starting job salaries in the food industry for properly qualified individuals is $20-$25 per hour.
Those who also complete their dietary aide course successfully reap all these benefits in their career. The quality of knowledge, experience, and skills they gain during the course helps one gain an extra footing to be a professional that is not only safe but able to offer nutritional advice to others.
Basic Food Storage Rules
The value of proper food storage is essential for several reasons including understanding…
- Protection of food freshness.
- Prevention of foodborne illnesses.
- Food health monitoring.
Regular tracking and monitoring of food items make food storage fundamentals possible.
Food Storage Basics
This is the most important thing you are taught during your food service worker online course in Canada. Some of these basics are practically understanding necessities like:
- Refrigerating raw meat, poultry, dairy, and seafood immediately.
- Discarding raw meat, poultry, dairy, and seafood kept at room temperature for over two hours.
- Discarding raw meat, poultry, dairy, and seafood stored at room temperature above 90° F for over an hour.
- Even food distribution in the refrigerator and freezer.
- Ensuring enough space between foods distributed in the refrigerator and freezer.
- Making sure the foods distributed in the refrigerator and freezer chill quickly and stay at an even temperature.
- Always keeping raw foods, fruits, cooked veggies, and meat separate all the time.
Value Refrigeration Rules
Value Refrigeration is not a term common to most people. Furthermore, those that study it get an in-depth knowledge of key points about both food safety AND the value of keeping food stored safely. Some specific points covered are…
- Always refrigerate foods at or below 40° F (4° C).
- Maintain and monitor refrigerator temperature to prevent food spoilage.
- Install a wireless/wired temperature monitoring system for it.
- Never keep foods, fruits, frozen meat, and veggies on the countertop.
- Thaw frozen meat to ensure bacterial prevention.
- Marinate foods, fruits, and veggies to slow bacteria growth.
- Use covers or containers to prevent cross-contamination of different types of foods.
- Use real-time alerts…
- To respond to food safety emergencies.
- To protect inventory.
- To save money and time on spoilage cleanup.
- To save the cost of food inventory replacement.
Those who complete their food service worker course successfully know how to implement all these refrigerator rules successfully to ensure proper food storage.
Freezing Frozen Foods
The quality of frozen foods must be preserved in the best possible way. Focus on keeping the freezer at 0° F (-18° C) is the best solution. Freezing foods prevents bacteria growth instead of killing the bacteria. Storing frozen foods in the freezer prevents food decay for a long time. In other words, the quality and health of food items frozen in the freezer decay slows over time. Planning to take care of frozen foods during weather issues, power outages, and equipment failures prevents food decay for some extra time. The Food Service Worker Course guides you about it in the best way.
Staple Food Storage Matters
Many foods don’t need freezing or refrigeration. However, proper food storage is still mandatory to keep them in good condition. Such food items must be protected from contamination, pests, and nutrition loss. Make sure you store them properly to protect the health and taste of such food items. You can do a couple of things to ensure it. For example:
- Use sealed containers or storage bags. It will help maintain the taste and freshness of staple foods like dry goods, sugar, yeast, and salt.
- Non-perishable food items must be stored away from all chemicals and cleaning supplies.
- Prioritize the use of older stock first.
- Value learning about shipments and best use before dates of all food items you buy.
- Always discard staple baby foods and formulas once they expire.
Plan For Weather Issues, Power Outages, And Equipment Failures
This is what it is called a disciplined approach and is important to safeguard the condition of food items for a long time. Food service workers must plan for unpredictable circumstances. Keep all appliance doors closed during power outages. Whenever issues like these arise, one has to be ready and know to…
- Keep refrigerator doors closed—food can be kept safe for two hours if the temperature rises above 40 degrees.
- Try to consume food items thawing—i.e. once it thaws, find a way to cook and serve it. Don’t wait for food temperature to reach below 40° F.
- Don’t try to freeze food items thawing.
A food service worker course is the best way to learn all these rules in detail. BITTS International Career College offers a course for it. You will learn a lot more than just proper food storage practices through it. Enrol now!