Food sanitation expert

[cowtown]

In the state of Illinois every food service establishment is required to have at least 1 licensed food sanitation expert on premise during all food service. The city of Chicago require their own license too, so you need one from the city and the state which, you can get both at the same time if you take the correct class and test. Then you need a special license, an additional one, for off premise food service as would be the case with a typical drum corps food service. I don’t know if it’s required for non-profit, I’m a bit rusty as my licenses expired years back. But that’s not the point

I strongly suggest that every corps gets their head chef licensed even if it’s not required.

After spending years working around kitchen I still learned a lot of really valuable information about food safety. It’s a scary class, it will make you the Howard Hughes of food...I have never looked at food the same way.

I bring this up because I noticed some food handling mishaps in others’ casual posts

The main one is the myth of bleach in killing germs (like flu germs)

It’s not enough to wash in bleach, you have to soak the entire item in bleach but only after all solids have been removed. Usually, it needs to soak for a full 90 seconds but the time really depends upon the ratio of bleach / water / water temperature.

Think about how you usually saw dishes being washed for the food truck, yep. It takes a very long time to do correctly. And I know many corps use disposables but there are other food sanitation issues that really should be known and followed that I seldom saw in place around drum corps.

so take the class and take the test, you have to be retested every 5 years in Illinois

that is all

[Perry S]

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[3rd_Star_Brigade]

Solution?

Move Regiment and Cavies out. Proceed to attack with ICBM's from the cold war.

No more Illinois.

[deftguy]

Out of all the loco things I have read on this board, this makes perfect sense to me. People take food handling very lightly until they get food poisoning.

[shaq9195]

Servsafe is a great program. Had to take it for my Culinary Program. They offer the program online as well.

[IllianaLancerContra]

Keep the hot food hot.

Keep the cold food cold.

Wash hands often.

[Piper]

I worked in the medical field for 23 years. If you walked into a hospital and sneezed you had to wash your hands. A common cold was a crap shoot. You either got kicked out or had to wear a surgical mask. Now that the flu season is upon us I hope that everyone stays safe.

[mellodramatic]

If you're talking about the sickness that went around the corps this summer, I believe it came from Florida. Drum corps should just avoid Florida from now on.

[CT-Horn]

and make sure you look into some type of water filtration device if you are getting water from a hose off a building.

[Michael Boo]

Cowtown:

That is very good advice indeed. I don't know what procedures corps cooking crews follow. It might be interesting to look into that. I'm sure they all pay close attention to what they feel should be done. Whether they are up on all the specifics that you point out is something I can't answer. Do we have anyone here from a corps cooking crew? If so, what do you do to guarantee sanitation and do you know if all the corps do the same?