When the health inspector visits your café, you may understandably feel overwhelmed with stress. The inspector’s findings can play a major role in your ability to maintain a solid reputation in the community and to turn a profit. After all, local residents will avoid your venue if low ratings are published. If conditions are very poor, the inspector could even force your venue to close for a period of time.

With so much at stake, it is imperative that you take all proper steps to make your venue as clean and as safe as possible. These are some of the top steps that you can take to ensure that your café passes a health inspection with flying colors.

Focus on Property Condition

When you think about a health inspection, you may be focused on the cleanliness of your kitchen and food prep area. However, the entire property condition can play a role in inspection findings. For example, if your commercial roof is leaking, mold growth can develop. A roof issue could also allow pests and rodents to enter your structure. Remember that the roof is only one of many aspects of your property condition that must be properly maintained by professionals such as Sunvek in order to ensure the cleanliness of your café.

Check Your Appliances

Your appliances are used to keep your perishable foods and ingredients safe, but the temperature settings for these appliances must be maintained at specific levels. For all of your appliances, regularly review temperature settings to ensure that an employee has not made an adjustment. Furthermore, clean these appliances regularly. Scheduling an annual appliance inspection is also a smart idea.

Review Food Storage Spaces

While the environment that your food products is stored in is essential for food quality, how the food is stored is also important. For example, chicken must be thoroughly cooked to a specific temperature before it is safe to eat. Beef, on the other hand, can be served rare or medium rare based on customers’ preferences. When your chicken is stored above your beef, there is a chance that chicken blood could drip onto the beef. Because the beef does not need to be heated as much chicken, there is a chance that you could unwittingly be serving your customers unhealthy food.

Getting high marks on a health inspection is a top priority, but there are many factors that could result in poor or even failing marks. Focus your attention on these points, and learn about other requirements for restaurants in your area to prepare for an inspection.