Jim's Blog-11/23/11 Permit to Operate Foodservice Establishment
Created on 11/23/2011 4:08:00 PM
We received our renewal “Permit to Operate a Foodservice Establishment” today, from the DuPage County Health Department. We’re blessed with a very good relationship with our county health department sanitarian, Mary Jo Kienzle. Mary Jo not only conducts periodic inspections of all of our commercial kitchen areas, but also helps in our continuous training efforts by giving educational talks to our food service staff.
Food safety is our number one concern in preparation and service of food, even beyond creating tasty and nutritious meals. Keeping foods out of ‘danger zone’ temperatures (including use of proper thawing procedures), avoiding cross contamination of tools and surfaces, food storage, dishwashing temperatures, and other procedures are all part of the standard good practices we follow. Chef Diana and two of her cooks have achieved Certified Food Service Manager Certification. We’re proud of all the members of that department.
By the way, when someone asks for a box for leftovers from a meal, we date the box. From there, we cannot always control where and for how long the resident stores the food. Because of this concern, many assisted living residences do not permit people to take left-overs. I look at a little differently. We ask our residents and their families to follow the same precautions we do.
