Place Washing Equipment in Your Commercial Kitchen

Are you opening a new restaurant? According to the FDA Food Code, you are required to have enough dishwashing and handwashing equipment. Seeing that cleanliness and hygiene is crucial to any food handling business, you would understand the necessity.

Even so, organizing your kitchen layout can be challenging. You may be faced with the challenge to hold your equipment in a way that optimizes the available space while allowing for a seamless flow of other processes within the kitchen.

Here are a few tips on how you can place dishwashers and sinks in your commercial kitchen.

1.    Adhere to the FDA Food Code guidelines on hand washing facilities

The FDA food codes require that

•    Hand washing facilities are placed adjacent to the washrooms

•    Hand washing facilities in a commercial kitchen must be readily accessible to employees preparing food, dispensing food and washing dishes

The above guidelines ensure the basic measures are taken to ensure food safety.

Keep in mind that health departments in each state have specific stipulations on the placement of handwashing facilities. For instance, although FDA does not specify what ‘ease of accessibility’ precisely means, your local health department may require that you have a hand washing sink within every 24feet.

2.    Create a room specifically for dishwashing.

Water and soap often spill out of the sink when washing dishes; posing a risk of slip and falls. As such, it is advisable to have a room specially designed for dishwashing. You can specially design it with rubber mats or a non-slip floor to prevent slip and fall accidents. Also, keep the room well ventilated and aerated as such rooms can get overwhelmingly humid.

3.    Invest in manual dishwashing equipment

Consider purchasing a three compartment dishwashing sink in case the commercial one breaks down. Why have 3 compartments? It is designed to support the complete dishwashing cycle; clean, rinse and disinfect. The compartmentalized sink should be deep enough such that you can completely submerge your biggest cooking pot or dish

4.    Have at least one extra sink

You could use the extra sink to wash food during preparation or to fill pots, pans and kettles with water for use when cooking. The extra sink will prevent the risk of food contamination that could result from using the same sink for food prep as for dishwashing. Depending on the workload in your kitchen, you could place more than one extra sink. Most preferably, the sinks should have at least two compartments.

The above tips will help you to plan your kitchen space for maximum functionality while adhering to food safety guidelines.