United States
The FDA has shared best practice guidelines for restaurants, delivery services, grocery stores, and other retail food businesses that address key considerations for employee health, cleaning and sanitizing, and personal protective equipment (PPE), as well as how food can be safely handled and delivered to the public key to keep their employees and customers safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FDA guidelines address 4 specific areas:
1) *Monitor Employee Health* - Management must instruct employees to speak up about possible COVID-19 symptoms or exposure and implement workplace controls to screen and reduce possible transmission. Workplace controls can include: Pre-screening employees for high temperatures, increase disinfecting and cleaning of workspaces and equipment, wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as face mask and gloves, and practicing social distancing of at least 6 ft when possible.
2) *Emphasize Personal Hygiene for Employees* - When working, employees must wash their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds especially after using the bathroom, before eating, and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing. If soap is not available, employees must use an alcohol-based sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Employees should also avoid touching exposed food or surfaces with their bare hands and need to always wear gloves.
3) *Follow and Enhance Food Safety Protocols* - Food establishments must follow established food safety protocols such as cooking foods to the proper temperature and separating raw and cooked ingredients. In addition to standard safety protocols, establishments need to increase safety measures to help customers maintain infection prevention by encouraging spacing in lines, discontinuing salad bars and buffets, and discouraging bringing pets into stores.
4) *Manage Food Pick-Up and Delivery* - For food pick-up, establishments need to create protocols to allow customers to maintain social distancing and maintain food safety standards. FDA recommends the creation of designated pick-up zones to allow for customers to maintain proper social distancing. For delivery, no-contact delivery and customer communication via Text and calls should be enacted.
This is not a comprehensive list and is only best practice guidelines from the FDA. If you spot issues or violations, please report at
safelyhq.com
To review the in-depth guidance from the FDA please go here:
www.fda.gov
Source: FDA
