WHAT DOES BACTERIA LIKES?

Bacteria is everywhere. We have to live with bacteria everyday. Good bacteria improve our health while bad bacteria cause us food poisoning. Bacteria stick on our hair, face, hands, shirts and trousers.  So, food handlers should how to prevent bacteria from contaminating the food they prepare. Knowing how bacteria grow would help us to control bacteria quantity in our food premise.

Bacteria consume nutrient from any source. So, leftover food or food debris on equipment and food premise could be consumed by bacteria. Food with high protein and high-water content is the best source that bacteria would actively grow on it. We call these kinds of food as high-risk foods.  The example of high-risk food are eggs and egg products, seafood and seafood products, meat, dairy products and ready-to-eat food.  Therefore, food handlers should handle these products in hygienic and cook them thoroughly before serving. 

Bacteria grow optimally in 37^oC (body temperature).  In fact, bacteria start to grow actively from the range of 5^oC to 63^oC at any source with nutrient.  We should not keep, especially high-risk food in this temperature range for a long time.      We can keep the food at 4^oC and below or we can cook the food thoroughly in order to kill bacteria in food. When food had to be served for a long time, we can install heating system, which continuously heating the food above 63^oC.

When bacteria in the condition of danger temperature zone for a long time, bacteria will grow rapidly.  In normal condition, bacteria would double the quantity in every 20-30 minutes. How many would it be?  You might not believe it… One (1) bacterium can split to 1 million bacteria in 6 hours!  And, that is only 1 bacterium. Imagine that! So, do not keep food for so long.  It’s better to serve the food to customer as soon as the food is ready.

Bacteria grow in food and any places with high water content.  Equipment and facilities need to be washed thoroughly and dried. All dry equipment should be kept at dry place.  After handling food, food handlers should clean the food premise before going home.

Bacteria growth could be controlled when food handlers implement appropriate food hygiene practices.  The lesser the (bad) bacteria in food, the safer the food to be consumed by our customers.                

WHY SHOULD YOU (YOUR TEAM) ATTEND FOOD HANDLERS TRAINING COURSE?

“Hi Boss, when there is FHC?
“Hi, please click on the link and find our latest schedule”
“ooo okok. How much is it?”
“It’s RM50/person”
“Boss can I ask…”

When I read these texts, I can roughly guess what next questions would be. Yeah! Occasionally I saw inquiries such as “Can I just pay for it (without attending the course)?”, “Can I ask somebody else to attend on behalf of me because I am busy BAHHHH..”, “Online izzit? Can I switch off the video during the class?” Well, frankly speaking, I was not really happy to answer these questions.  For me, those are words of disrespect to my profession.  

Over these years, sometimes I was trying to figure out why food handlers are reluctant to attend course. Through my observation, I received feedbacks such as food handlers busying on food business (no time), course duration is too long, food handlers do not like to attend training, do not know how to use ZOOM and google form due to aged or uneducated. Couple of years ago, I visited restaurants, cafeteria and food kiosks, giving leaflet to the food premise’s person-in-charge, trying to promote Food Handlers Training course.  There is a boss complained to me – “It is a waste of time to arrange staff to attend course because after they attend it and work for a while, they quit the job!” 

Well, I know most of us think that attending Food Handlers Training Course is to obtain the certificate in order to pass future inspection.  Yes. This is one of the purposes indeed. But, let’s think about your purpose of hiring employees. What is the purpose to hire food handlers in your food business? I bet the answers of all bosses are the same – to buy other people’s time to build your food business.  Business owners expect every food handler to handle the food efficiently and also in hygienic way so that business is sustainable and growing. In other word, business owners would like to “photocopy” many competent personnel to run the food business. 

Therefore, training is crucial to educate food handler to handle food correctly in order to avoid customers from food poisoning.  The 3-hours Food Handlers Training course would enlighten food handlers the correct food handling concepts and they could start practising them in the workplace.  When your food handlers are familiar with good food handling practice, they would automatically be taking care of the food hygiene and food safety, which would help smoothen your food business operation. Would you agree? 

Training is also giving a reminder for certain food handlers who might had known the right food handling practice.  I had student who had attended Food handlers Training course years ago. Some student attended the course at other school, some lost their certificate. They are willing to retake. I also ever trained student with old age. Although they do not know how to use ZOOM and google form, yet they still willing to attend online course. Some student seeks assistance of their family member, some insist to learn by themselves on how to access online learning. They asked many questions, feeling embarrassed.   I replied: “it’s OK aunty!” and replied all their questions patiently. I am also ever trained a student with dysaudia. Her spouse is assisting her diligently in the whole 3-hours class.  These students completed their training. When I announced that he training is over. They are so happy. For them, they are completing a task which they ever do in their life. I was touched by their spirit. And, I am proud of my carrier.

I met a competent food handler couple of days ago when I passed by a food truck near a hypermarket. He is promoting his company’s new food product. I was initially attracted by the new product launched by the well-known company.  So, I approached the truck and the food handler is about to prepare some food sample for pedestrian to test.    While waiting the food sample to be ready, I had a simple chit chat with the him. He is proud with his job. He wore head cover, face mask, gloves, and aprons while preparing the food. He said it is his company’s policy to make sure food safety, so they must wear correct attire while preparing food.  And the company arranged formal training to every food handler.  Seeing the food handler using a screener, I asked him how to wash the equipment, he is then explaining the washing procedure.  That is impressing me. Think about it, if the food handler does not go through proper training and practising it, would he answer the cleaning procedure? Certainly not! After a while, when the food is ready, he invited me to test the food as many as I could. I tasted it and it’s very yummy. I enjoy the clean food. That’s a very impressive experience I had. 

So, we should arrange our food handler team to attend food handlers training course. Let’s not think about complying the regulations first. Think about how customers can enjoy my food product in peace of mind and become my repeated customers.  I guess that’s every food business owner’s will.      
     

PERSONAL HYGIENE OF FOOD HANDLERS

Personal hygiene is one of the practices that food business owners should emphasize while running the food business. This is because the practice is closely related with food hygiene.  Food handler with poor personal hygiene would contaminate the food that they are preparing.

Hence, food handler candidates should be briefed about the importance of personal hygiene before they join the food company.  The basic requirement of a food handler is getting Anti-typhoid vaccinated and attending a food handling course. The candidate would learn concepts about food handling in the course, for them to practise during handling food. Attending the training also enable them to comply reg 30 of Food Hygiene regulations 2009. 

It is a good habit for food handler to have a routine self-check before commencing the daily work. Food handler should make sure that they are fit to work. They should wear appropriate attire to protect food from contaminated. Besides, food handlers are also not allowed to wear accessory, posses’ long fingernails or apply cosmetics while handling food to prevent food contamination.

Food handlers who is sicked, suffering from food poisoning or get hurt at hands are not allowed to handle food. While handling food, they should wear head cover and apron and to use appropriate and clean utensils or wearing glove to handle food and should not touching food with bare hands. This is because they are a lot of contaminants in our body, especially Staphylococcus aureus which existed on our hair, ears, nose, mouth and hands.  

While handling food, food handler also must implement hygiene practices, such as washing hands.  Food handlers should wash hands after visiting toilets, touching face, handling raw foods, dispose waste, cleaning equipment or facility and before resume to work.   Do not smoke, coughing directly on the food, taste food with fingers, eating, spitting, digging nose, scratching head etc while preparing the food because these actions would cause cross contamination easily.

Poor personal hygiene is one of the reasons that food is contaminated, causing food poisoning.  This incident (which caused by poor personal hygiene) could be avoided when every food handler builds a habit of maintaining good personal hygiene.  Everybody can do it!

7 STEPS OF HAND WASHING

Hands are the part of our Food Handlers’ body which always contacting food. Thus, food handlers should always wash hands, especially each time before handling food. Well, do you know that actually there are 7 steps in hand washing? Let’s check if you / your food handlers practise these steps.

Step 1: Apply adequate soap in hands with clean water.  Remember to use liquid type soap. Solid type soap would accumulate contaminants from the previous soap users. After applying soap, it’s better to turn on the water tab using elbow, as our palms are dirty would contaminate the water tab. So, it is good if food business owner to install longer water tab handle.  Some hand washing equipment has water tab that is being turned on by stepping with foot or pressing with knee. 

Step2: Scrub both hands for a thoroughly soap application.  Some people just ignore this step. They thought by getting wet their hands is enough to wash hands. Actually, it is not.  This step could remove contaminant on the palm.

Step3: Scrub each finger and the crevices. This step helps to remove contaminants that is hided in between fingers.

Step4: Scrub finger nails at both palms to remove dirt at adjacent nails. Food Handlers should make sure their finger nails to be cut as short as possible to avoid dirt hiding in the crevices between finger nails and the fingers.     

Step5: Using finger nails to scrub the rear side of each hand to remove dirt at the back of hands.

Step6: Turn on water tab by elbow and rinse hands with clean water. This step removing all contaminant that had been washed away by soap. Having done that, turn off the water tab by elbow again.

Step7: Dry hands with paper towel or hand dryer.  Some document sharing to dry hands with clean towel. I do not really agree that as the towel would eventually dirty as a result of the dirt accumulation from the previous users. So, I prefer using paper towel to dry hands and to throw the towel in the waste bin.  Hand drying is another hygiene method which we can implement too.

Washing hands with these 7 steps take at least 20 seconds. This is an effective way to clean our hands and to prevent us from contaminating the food while we handle them.

Let’s practise the steps today!