Concerns about apron

Are you wearing apron when you are preparing food? What kind of apron are you using? short? with pocket? colourful? What are the purpose of wearing apron? Some of us might think that wearing apron is to prevent dirts from sticking our shirts, some might think that it looks great when wearing apron. What is your reason of wearing apron?

The actual purpose of wearing apron is to prevent dirts from our shirts to contaminate the food. As our shirts will be sticked with dirts, ash and bacteria wherever we are. Bacteria are anywhere, as long as there is oxygen. Thus, food handlers should wear apron to prevent the contamination to the food. There are some concerns about apron which food handler should take note.

Food handlers should wear light colour apron so that they could easily identify the dirts. Dark / black colour apron is not allowed as food handler would find difficulty noticing the dirts on it, if they is. So, it is better to wear white, yellow or orange apron. Then, the supervisors / QCs in food processing could inspect easily.

Do not rub hands or anything with the apron. If apron is dirty, it will contaminate the food while preparing. So, always keep the apron clean. Do not bring it outside the processing plant or bring it together to the toilet. We must understand that toilet is the most dirty place in the food processor. Hang it in a suitable place, when food handler to go out or to the toilet.

Did you or your crew wearing apron immediately when health officers are about to do inspection. Yea, it is not good. We should educate our workers the right ways in wearing apron. So that they can build a habits practise wearing apron everyday, while preparing food. If habits being built, we would not be panic when health officers is coming to your premise to do inspection.

There are aprons with pocket. THIS IS NOT A PROPER apron to be wore. When we have apron with pocket. We will likely to put in our hands (no matter washed or not) into the pockets. May be we are putting money, paper, pen, calculator, other stuff while working. The pocket would trap the dirt, our sweating. It is also difficult to be washed. So, people putting in hands and pulling out, putting things in it and taken out. There will be many dirts remain in the pocket. Just imagine, when we pull our hands into the pocket, we are risking ourselves against the contamination.

Apron is an important cloth to prevent the contamination to the food. Thus, we must make sure the apron is used correctly, to avoid the contamination to the food.

Credit: Sir Sazly tulih