Restaurant equipment will quickly become dirty with food debris and grease. This can cause a safety hazard as well as spreading bacteria to food.
The last thing you want is to make customers or staff sick, so carrying out regular cleaning of your restaurant equipment is vital.
Find out the best way to clean your equipment and what to use.
Spread infection and lose customers
Cleaning your restaurant equipment is important as a build up of grease and bacteria could spread to food and make your customers ill.
If your customers think your restaurant is unclean, they won’t be back, and they’ll tell others too.
Eating out accounts for around 37% of all foodborne norovirus cases and just over 30% of people stopped eating at establishments because of food poisoning.
Poor food hygiene rating
If your restaurant kitchen isn’t clean, you could also face a poor food hygiene rating which the majority of people look at before choosing where to eat.
Impacts staff productivity
If you don’t take pride in your establishment then your staff won’t either which impacts productivity and customer service.
Maintain equipment
By maintaining your expensive restaurant equipment, it will last you longer and provide better value for money. It can also avoid unexpected breakdowns and costly repairs.
It’s a vicious cycle which could easily be avoided by regularly cleaning your restaurant and your restaurant equipment.
What is the legislation for cleaning restaurant equipment?
The food safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995 states the condition your food premises should be in including the layout, size, food hygiene practices, suitable equipment, lighting, drainage, and more.
The Food Standards Agency carry out inspections on food premises and dictate the food hygiene ratings. Although you do not have to display your food hygiene rating in some parts of the UK, this is easily checked online.
It’s worth your while to comply with legislation, not just to avoid fines or closure, but establishments with 5-star rating can charge more.
How often should restaurant equipment be cleaned?
Restaurant equipment should be cleaned at least once every 24 hours and a commercial kitchen deep cleaning at least every 6 months.
Maintaining your equipment will mean it won’t be in as bad condition when you need to deep clean it.
How do you clean commercial equipment?
Different restaurant equipment will need to be cleaned differently but it is important to use the right cleaning products to avoid damaging them.
You will be able to take most commercial restaurant equipment apart such as taking shelves out of freezers and taking vents out of your commercial extractor fan, to let you clean your equipment more easily.
You should have a colour-coded system to ensure you do not cross-contaminate areas. Such as using equipment for raw meat in an area for cooked meat.
Remember, your dishwasher, also needs cleaned even though it does the cleaning.
How to clean a commercial kitchen oven
Your oven will be on almost all day, every day.
It’s working hard which is why it will quickly build up with debris, grease, and food.
You should be able to take the shelves out to clean these separately. They can be sprayed with degreaser or leave them in soap and hot water overnight.
Use an industrial oven cleaner or degreaser on the rest of your oven and rinse with warm water.
Wipe your oven down daily and remove debris and clean at least once a week with a deep clean every month.
Exhaust hoods and vents
It’s important to carry out canopy cleaning to prevent any build-up of grease which can cause kitchen fires.
It’s also important to prevent rust and erosion, so your equipment lasts longer.
You should carry out two stage cleaning techniques. E. coli guidance recommends this for ensuring food preparation surfaces and equipment are properly clean.
For your commercial extractor fan cleaning, you should check if you can put parts of it in the dishwasher.
If not, you may need to soak the filter overnight in soap and hot water.
You can use a heavy duty cleaner and degreaser to clean the rest of the extractor fan or hot water pressure which means you don’t need any chemicals as the force of the water will remove the grime.
It’s also important to leave the sanitiser on the surface to allow them ‘kill time’ to reduce the number of bacteria for hygienic cleaning.
We recommend SanitiserPLUS which comes in a 4kg tub. It’s a powder that you simply add water too. This helps it to last longer and reduce your cost and carbon footprint.
It will disinfect and is proven to kill 99.99% of bacteria including Listeria, MRSA, and Salmonella. It will also neutralise any odours.
You can polish your extractor fan after too and make it shiny.
How to clean grease
Grease is a problem in every restaurant kitchen.
If you produce fats, oils, or grease, you need to have a grease trap for commercial kitchens which should be cleaned every month.
Water isn’t enough to get rid of grease because the water molecules don’t stick to the grease molecules. Instead, commercial grease cleaner should be used.
How to clean stainless steel
All commercial kitchens will have stainless steel.
To clean your stainless steel, use a mild detergent and a damp cloth. A microfibre cloth is better for attracting bacteria and is reusable, helping you to be more sustainable.
Wipe in the direction of the finish and use a glass cleaner to make it shine.
Restaurant equipment cleaning services
Restaurant cleaning services for businesses can help take the pressure of you and your staff.
Chefs have enough to do without having to clean industrial kitchen cleaning too. They may rush it, or not have the right training to use the appropriate chemicals to do it properly and get rid of bacteria.
A restaurant equipment cleaning service means you can be sure of experts maintaining your cleanliness to get you that 5-star hygiene rating.
At Stainlesscleans we provide a dedicated account manager to regularly inspect your kitchen to ensure a high standard of cleanliness.
Our commercial kitchen cleaning services also take care of all the paperwork, which is one of the reasons so many businesses don’t achieve a 5-star hygiene rating.
You don’t have to be afraid when the food inspector shows up, you will be confident that your commercial kitchen is spotless.
Interested in our restaurant cleaning service?
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Stainlesscleans are a commercial cleaning company in London. We provide professional kitchen cleaning products, commercial kitchen cleaning services, and kitchen portering.
