Even after what we have been through during the pandemic, restaurants must comply with health regulations for cleaning and disinfection. Here we tell you the essential products for your establishment.
For restaurants and bars, the adoption of hygienic measures has meant rethinking cleanliness to maintain a safe environment, both for customers and collaborators.
While it has been challenging, tools and equipment now exist to facilitate compliance with cleaning and disinfection measures that restaurant and bar operators need to reduce the risk of contagion from COVID-19 or any other type of virus and disease.
How to maintain a healthy and clean environment in your restaurant?
Restaurants and bars can implement various strategies to maintain healthy environments.
Cleaning and disinfection
Before the opening of your establishment, we must carry exhaustive disinfection out. For this, it is essential to guarantee the supply of washing and disinfection supplies, as well as the necessary tools and equipment.
It must also carry the cleaning and disinfection process out at the end of the working day and all personnel who perform these tasks must wear gloves, which must be discarded at the end of the activities.
We should note that when using products to disinfect, you ensure that they meet the EPA criteria for the elimination of COVID-19 and that they are suitable for the surface.
It is essential to clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces and shared objects (payment terminals, tables, bars, receipt trays) on a daily basis and as much as possible.
When performing these tasks, the staff must be very careful, since an error in the application puts the effectiveness of the disinfection at risk. For example, a very common mistake is to spray surfaces with the formula and then dry it.
The correct thing is to clean first and then apply the disinfectant. It is also important to allow the substance to act on the surface for the time recommended by the manufacturer. To ensure the safe and effective use of the product, always follow the instructions on the products.
Equipment to disinfect restaurants
At Masisa, as a leading company in cleaning equipment and solutions in Mexico, we have ideal machines for disinfecting restaurants.
The E-SPRAY sprayer, with electrostatic technology that provides an electrical charge to the sprayed solution, facilitates disinfecting surfaces such as tables, bars, trays, and kitchen furniture. Thanks to its technology, the solution is evenly distributed over the entire surface, increasing the quality and efficiency of disinfection.
Another piece of equipment, perfect for sanitizing restaurants, is the PORTABLE sprayer, which has a continuous run time of 1 hour and 50 minutes. It has a backpack system that guarantees that the user has the freedom to move and does not have to drag cables, reducing wear and tear on the user, and thus guaranteeing homogeneous disinfection.
More measures to keep a restaurant free of germs and viruses
- The recommendation of health authorities is to establish a disinfection routine, for which adequate training of personnel on cleaning procedures and periods is necessary.
- For food contact surfaces you should also wash, rinse, and sanitize the surface with a product approved for food contact surfaces.
- Make sure that there are no residues of cleaning or disinfecting products on the surfaces of the tables. These products can cause allergic reactions, or the ingestion of chemicals by someone can occur.
- To remove garbage bags, handle, and dispose of waste, it is essential to wear gloves and wash your hands when removing them.
- Assign a person in charge dedicated to ensuring the correct implementation of sanitary measures.
- Establish a staff entry control, with a remote thermometer, to restrict the access of people with a temperature above 37 degrees, and/or with respiratory symptoms, recommending that they seek medical attention as soon as possible.
- Temporarily cancel fingerprint check-in, and do so by some other means.
- If the staff wears a uniform, they must bring it from home in a bag, and change at the establishment. The same at the exit, take off the uniform and take it inside your bag for washing. We should mechanically launder uniforms daily with hot water.
- Have a mat impregnated with a chlorinated solution at the entrance of personnel (sanitary mat).
- If possible, stagger entry times to avoid crowds when registering entries or exits.
- Ensure that the establishment has natural or mechanical ventilation.
How to reduce the chances of contagion in your restaurant?
The more a person interacts with other individuals, and the longer that interaction lasts, the greater the risk of spreading COVID-19. Masks can reduce risk if worn consistently by customers and employees, especially when social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.
Keep in mind that COVID-19 spreads primarily when people are physically close (within 6 feet) to a person with COVID-19.
For this reason, even when disinfection measures are taken, and clients and staff wear masks, there is still a risk of contagion. It depends on the service and place, the probabilities can be more or less high.
| Risk of contagion of COVID-19 in restaurants | ||
| Bass | Medium | Tall |
| There is a low risk of contagion when food service is limited to the drive-thru, delivery, and takeout. | Medium risk of contagion when the place is limited to providing care outdoors and 1.80 m or more separates the tables, one from another. | There is a high risk of contagion when it is limited to providing care indoors, or outdoors, with tables separated by less than 1.80m from each other. |
Given this scenario, it is necessary to have the right information and tools to keep your restaurant as clean as possible. At SCS Group, we help you with the best equipment to disinfect your spaces, as well as with training for your staff.