Keeping your kitchen clean and safe for staff and visitors is always important. If you’ve been forced to close your kitchen because of coronavirus restrictions, how do you reopen safely?
Here are our five top tips for reopening your kitchen after lockdown.
1. Gas safety checks
With your kitchen closed and staff at home, gas safety checks can easily be overlooked. It’s a legal requirement to maintain your gas appliances, so make sure you haven’t missed your annual gas safety check. If gas appliances are not properly maintained, it can cause unnecessary breakdowns and in the worst-case scenario make the equipment dangerous.
2. Ductwork
It might look clean, but if deposits of grease are allowed to accumulate in extract ductwork, a flash flame or high temperature may cause them to ignite. If you haven’t had a ductwork clean by an accredited organisation to TR / 19 standards, your insurance policy could be invalid. At TWO Services, we advise that ductwork checks are carried out quarterly, but at a minimum, every 6 months.
3. Maintenance of equipment
Regular maintenance visits can reduce the risk of breakdowns, which is more important than ever. You might think that because a kitchen hasn’t been used for a while, it hasn’t had any additional wear and tear. But each piece of kitchen equipment is a cog in a wheel and if one stops working, it can mean closing the kitchen. Why not get the best of both worlds with TWO Services. One provider for both cleaning and maintenance.
4. Deep clean
Even when a kitchen isn’t in use, dust continues to collect. Before you reopen your kitchen, employing the services of a trained team to deep clean your kitchen could be beneficial. Your kitchen staff and cleaners won’t be trained in high-level cleaning using ladders, and won’t have the experience to properly deep clean heavy equipment.
5. Pest control
A closed kitchen can give pests, such as vermin, a chance to become a real problem. They can find food in storage or residual food that has been dropped behind equipment. A widespread pest infestation can cause a serious health and safety concern.
It’s important to consider the five points above before reopening your kitchen. After the disruption for many this year, you don’t want to close a kitchen because of equipment breakdowns or health and safety concerns.
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