How to handle five common fast food industry regulation challenges

Being compliant within the fast food industry is a lot like cooking the perfect five layer burger. It only works well if each layer is equally tasty. Achieving this tasty solution can be challenging but with the right restaurant compliance solutions, you can handle any fast food restaurant inspection with ease!

Maintain food safety standards with an effective food safety plan

Food safety plays perhaps the most important role in a restaurant. Restaurants must adhere to strict guidelines that align with the local health code for restaurants. Customers should be able to safely dine at your venue and not worry about getting sick from contaminated food.

A thorough food safety plan can help keep your restaurant run smoothly and safely. Creating a plan is much easier than you think. Here’s how:

1. Spot the risks: Look at your food operation and figure out where things could go wrong like cross contamination points or faulty equipment.
2. Prevent problems: Set up steps to stop those risks from becoming issues.
3. Keep an eye on things: Make sure your prevention steps are working. If you prepare meals with known allergens like nuts or dairy, there should be separate food prep areas. Check in before and during your operations to make sure your staff are preparing food in these specific zones.
4. Have a backup plan: Know what to do if something goes wrong, like how to fix a broken piece of equipment, or how to correctly dispose of a spoiled product.
5. Double-check everything: Regularly review your plan to make sure it’s effective. Do a kitchen run through and check if your staff are following food prep processes correctly and your equipment is working. This should be done every month, but at minimum every three months.

When it comes to abiding by fast food industry regulations, there’s a lot to consider. We cover food safety plans in more detail in our article, Developing an effective food safety plan.

Keep up with changing regulations by remaining in the loop

Regulations constantly swivel to meet the customer needs. Staying on top of these fast food industry regulation changes can be tricky to say the least. And if you run multiple venues, you may have to be across several different local or regional health codes.

Subscribe to your local food safety regulatory agency’s newsletter or check their website for compliance updates. Aim to check for updates every month but make it a requirement to do it every three months. Include ‘fast food industry regulation check’ in a digital compliance checklist and set a notification for every month.

Train your staff with mobile-first training modules

In the fast food industry, high staff turnover can cause you to lose track of who has and hasn’t been trained, especially if you run multiple venues. If you don’t get on top of this though it can lead to massive consequences, like:

• customers being injured at your restaurant
• failing a fast food restaurant inspection
• staff being hurt because they incorrectly used equipment, and
• your reputation being damaged by not abiding by the local or regional health code for restaurants.

Work closely with your managers and design digital training modules that cover their role requirements. Make sure your training meets your venue’s specific needs, like emergency evacuation drills if your venue is in a shopping mall or food preparation techniques if your menu items are kosher or halal.

To really ace a fast food restaurant inspection, your training must be in line with fast food industry regulations. You will most likely find your relevant health code for restaurants on your local food safety authority’s website.

Once you have nailed the training material, upload the modules to a mobile-first training platform. When you publish or assign a course to an employee, send them a courtesy message notifying them about training. That way you know they’ve received the most recent fast food industry regulation training.

Plus, you can monitor and assess your employees’ progress and engagement with training materials in real-time, including:

• course completion rates
• quiz scores,
• and other metrics, like course material feedback or staff led restaurant compliance solutions.

Monitor your kitchen temperature with sensors

In a restaurant’s fast-paced environment it can be difficult keeping things at the right temperature. But it can be even more challenging keeping track of any unwanted temperature changes. If you don’t, this can lead to spoilage and foodborne illnesses.

Look for a remote temperature monitoring system with wireless sensor technology that allows you to monitor the temperature and humidity of all your equipment in real time. The tech should also be able to send you and/or your staff instant SMS alerts the moment a temperature falls outside the appropriate range.

Manage allergens and food labeling with a comprehensive allergen management program

Due to the different ingredients used in fast food restaurants, plus the heightened chance of cross contamination in a busy kitchen, it can be tricky to stay on top of allergen management.

Then there comes the challenge of food labelling. You need to make sure your in-kitchen ingredients are properly labeled, and all allergen information is displayed to customers.

If you don’t stay on top of this, patrons can get sick or have an allergic reaction. This is one of the worst things that can happen for a restaurant. But there are solutions! Here are some things you and your staff can do to help lessen the chances of something bad happening.

Identify and label allergens

Identify all potential allergens in your ingredients and make sure they are accurately labeled on menus and packaging. In the kitchen, it’s best to avoid handwritten labels as they can be hard to read during a rush period and opt for standardized printed labels. We cover how you would go about this in more detail in our blog, Shelf-life tracking and labeling with restaurant management software.

Train your staff

All of your employees should be aware of the potential allergens present in your restaurant. Make sure they have also been taught about:

• safe-food handling practices
• how to label food correctly, and
• how to communicate what allergens are present in the food with customers.

Audit of your kitchen every two to three months to check if everyone is following protocol.

Prevent cross contamination

Have strict rules regarding food prep within your venue to avoid cross contamination. This can include using separate utensils for particular ingredients and having allergen-free preparation areas. Follow these rules to avoid potential illness amongst customers and to stick to fast food industry regulations.

Operandio helps you with restaurant compliance solutions

If you’re the kind of manager or business owner who wants to remain compliant but find it difficult to stay on top of things, then Operandio is for you. Reduce your venue’s chances of food spoilage, cross contamination, and staff training gaps with a single piece of cutting-edge technology. Book your free demo today.