Food safety is certainly on every restaurateur's mind when inspection time comes around, but protecting your restaurant customers and your employees needs to be a priority all the time. And it's not as simple as hand washing alone; new food safety research is constantly emerging to help restaurants pinpoint areas for improvement.

The food safety equation might be broken down into several categories that intersect and interact all the time: food, equipment, employees, and customers. Some operational weaknesses can be corrected by simply building better food safety habits. Others may take monetary investments, but it is time and money well spent to improve employee safety and customer satisfaction at your restaurant.

All the food in a restaurant needs to be handled with great care to avoid contamination; bacteria are food safety's invisible enemies that can make your customers very sick. First, all food needs to be stored correctly and should be part of your restaurant's rotation program; "out with the old, in with the new," as they say! Even ice should be considered a food and treated accordingly. In Serv-U's Food Safety Resource Center, you'll find specific suggestions for the best ways to handle foods in your restaurant.

Your restaurant surely makes great food, but if the equipment isn't up to snuff, it is very difficult to ensure that food is 100% safe. Color coded kitchen supplies are just one way to step up food safety and prevent cross contamination. Equipping your restaurant with the proper supplies and performing regular maintenance makes the job of keeping food safety standards high easier for you and your employees.

Improving employee habits is perhaps the cheapest and fastest way to improve food safety in your restaurant. Educating your workers is the first step. Cross contamination can be prevented through proper use of materials, good hygiene, wearing gloves, and other best practices that can only be put into effect once your employees understand their role in your restaurant's food safety program. But protecting your customers isn't your only priority. Employees also need to know how to handle themselves safely in the kitchen to avoid slips and burns. Knowledge is the best weapon against restaurant accidents. Find all the knowledge your restaurant team needs here in the Food Safety Resource Center.

When you follow the tips you'll find here in the Food Safety Resource Center, you'll find that the cleanliness of your restaurant-along with your delicious food-will keep your employees safe, the health inspector happy, and your customers coming back again and again.