Vollrath on Food Safety & Total Cost of Ownership

Vollrath is known for providing foodservice equipment that matches your ambition. With a focus on food safety and total cost of ownership, Vollrath offers quality products that stand the test of time, increase efficiency, improve portion control, and ensure food safety. 

How will you protect everyone from cross contamination, allergic reactions, and food poisoning risks?

An excellent place to start is with an effective HACCP plan. HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point. It’s a food safety system that helps operators identify the foods and procedures most likely to cause foodborne illness and then create processes to reduce that risk. You can find information HERE. 

For more information on HACCP and products you can apply to your plan that will ensure success CLICK HERE.

Utilizing colored utensils and smallwares for specific food products provides an easy way to prevent cross-contact between raw meats, dairy, seafood, fruits/veggies, cooked foods, and allergens. Vollrath color-coded tools and utensils prevent cross-contamination at every step. From pans to utensils to servers and cutting boards, a color-coded method for controlling food contact and cross-contamination is essential to a good HACCP plan. WATCH NOW as Chef Yia Vang of Union Hmong Kitchen speaks to the importance of utilizing colored coded utensils and smallware for a safe kitchen.

What about food allergens? Every three minutes in the U.S., a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency room. Researchers ESTIMATE that 32 million Americans, including 5.6 million children, have food allergies — an issue that seems to be increasingly prevalent. 

Vollrath provides purple kitchen tools for allergen-free meals. The purple color gives quick identification to employees and customers. Your entire staff must be well-informed about the eight foods that account for 90 percent of food allergies: eggs, wheat, milk, soy, shellfish, fish, tree nuts, and peanuts. In schools, the foodservice staff should consult with food-allergic students and their parents about what to avoid and acceptable substitutions. Reading labels, recipes, and ingredient lists are crucial, and it’s wise to keep food labels for at least 24 hours in case of reactions.

Pay attention to NSF! When Vollrath designs equipment to provide operators with solutions, they always put NSF-certified standards in play. NSF or the National Sanitation Foundation is a nonprofit organization that develops rigorous standards and evaluates products for material safety, design, construction, and performance. 

Vollrath spends a lot of time designing products, sourcing the best materials, evaluating performance, and seeking NSF certification to ensure food safety.

Material sourcing is a big part of NSF certification. High-quality materials that are easy to clean and safe for food contact are imperative. For example, Vollrath sources corrosion-resistant stainless steel because it’s a durable, cleanable, and easily sanitized surface.

Another component of NSF certification is the design and construction of the product. Equipment should be easy to clean and free of any nooks or crannies that might collect germs or bacteria, which can cause various foodborne illnesses. 

For example, Vollrath’s steak weights feature a smooth design, free from any food traps where food can build up and be a source of bacteria. In addition, the silicone handle comes off for easy cleaning, so bacteria can’t collect on, in, or around the handle. 

Another excellent example of a product designed to meet NSF certification is Vollrath’s InstaSlice. The InstaSlice provides easy-to-clean design features and corrosion-resistant materials. Acidic foods, like tomatoes, are known to cause corrosion, so they had to find a way to prevent that. Features they included for food safety include the following.

• Blades are corrosion-resistant stainless steel and pop in and out of the slicer for quick and easy cleaning. 
• The pusher head features a Hard Coat anodized coating to offer additional protection against corrosion.
• Pusher block and blade pack, made of thermoset plastic, resist corrosion entirely.

Combining this easy-to-clean design with top-tier materials makes the InstaSlice a good choice for slicing food, even tomatoes. 

NSF certification also considers product performance. Temperature control, for example, plays a huge role in food safety, and NSF has strict standards to ensure food products maintain safe temperatures.

Operators must employ food warmers and rethermalizers that offer powerful, accurate, and consistent heat to prevent food spoilage.

Vollrath has this covered too. Operators can count on Vollrath warmers to keep hot food hot and hold the food temperature above the “danger zone,” which is a safe holding temperature of 140°F.

Rethermalizers are a bit more complicated. Vollrath rethermalizers take prepared cold food from a chilled temperature and heat safely through the “danger zone” and up to 165°F within 90 minutes. Then, they hold the food at that hot serving temperature. It’s a critical process for food safety that Vollrath makes easy and consistent.

How do they do it? Vollrath’s premier line of induction warmers and rethermalizers uses technology to ensure accurate heating and temperature control. They feature temperature sensors, which closely monitor and maintain food temperatures and alert the operator if stirring is needed to distribute the heat more evenly. 

Vollrath has done a lot of research on food safety and focused on taking the guesswork out of temperature control, making it easy to serve food at safe temperatures, avoid food spoilage and consistently produce high-quality results. 

The same rules apply to cold equipment regarding accurate and consistent temperatures. When designed to NSF standards, you ensure that cold and frozen food holds at safe temperatures. Operators have the peace of mind of knowing that all Vollrath cold food products follow the NSF certification standard.

When you look at Vollrath’s collection of food safety solutions and NSF Certified products, you can be confident that they go the extra mile to help keep your customers safe. 

Food safety doesn’t have to be stressful. Put Vollrath’s food safety products into play along with a good HACCP plan and serve your very best safely and seamlessly.