McDonalds Workplace Hygeine

Executive Summary

This report is to apply the HACCP to check and evaluate the food safety procedures in one of the most famous fast-food company; the McDonald .and also aims at offering some suggestions to correct some of the non-satisfactory procedures. The report will describe it from the following aspects: personal hygiene, cleaning and sanitizing, pest control, garbage disposal, receiving foods, storing foods, cooling& defrosting, cooking and holding.

McDonald is a leading food service retailer. Just in the USA, it has more than 12,300 traditional restaurants, plus approximately 1320 satellite locations in facilities like hospitals. They serve more than 21.8 million customers a day. So how dose the food safety procedures go on in McDonald is of great importance, which is related to the health of consumers.

In order to apply the HACCP to check the food safety procedure, this report does a study of the food safety procedure in the McDonald, and find out that as a successful enterprise, McDonald develops detailed provisions to ensure the food safety procedure, making food safety a key factor to its success.

Introduction

Produce and serve safe food is the final goal for foodservice operations (Yi-Mei Sun, 2005). It was reported that HACCP system have not yet been homogeneously implemented across all of the food industry (Panisello and Quantick, 2001; G.Campbell-Platt, 2002). The key action, known as critical control points can be taken to reduce or eliminate the risk of the hazards being realized. It is used in the food industry to identify potential food safety hazards at all stages of food production and preparation processes.

McDonald, as the biggest fast food retailer in the world, take the food safety as a never-ending process, from raw materials, through the facilities and distribution centers, and all the way to the restaurants. It”„¢s a top priority at McDonald”„¢s. (Sarah Fister Gale, 2006).

Situational Analysis

Personal Hygiene

Personal hygiene of the workers is probably one of the most important thing, because the workers need to interact with the customers, and in the McDonald, they are responsible for the dinning environment.

McDonald has specific regulations for workers”„¢ personal hygiene as follows:

1. Clothes must be clean and appropriate.

2. Keep hair clean, ladies”„¢ face should not be covered by the hair.

3. Men”„¢s hair should be above the collar, long hair is not allowed.

4. Men need to shave and manicure everyday.

5. Ladies should wear the appropriate make-up. And too much decoration is not allowed.

6. Keep the fingernail clean and short.

7. Maintain oral hygiene and regular bathing.

8. Members of the McDonald”„¢s restaurant management group need to wear uniforms.

9. Wash hand before going to workstation.

Of all the McDonald”„¢s hygiene standards, most of the regulations are carried out by nearly all the workers in McDonald. But there is the told by one of the workers in McDonald: Sorry to ruin your idea about McDonald”„¢s and hand washing. I”„¢ve worked at McDonald”„¢s for three months, and I never see anyone wear gloves, or wash their hands, managers included. Since this comments comes from the forum, it is difficult for us the judge its reliability. However, the suggestions for the McDonald manager is that, they need to pay more attention to the workers personal hygiene, and try their best the make the situation much better.

Cleaning and Sanitizing

Cleaning and Sanitizing are necessary processes to create a clean and nice environment for the customers in the McDonald. According to the HACCP, cleaning and sanitizing should follow four steps: pre-clean, main clean, sanities and drying.

Regulations concerned about cleaning and sanitizing in the McDonald are:

Pre-clean:

1. The dining tables, chairs ,windows and equipment should be spotless.

2. All the tableware and machine should be completely cleaned and sanitizing after work.

3. The glass must be rub everyday

4. The parking lot must be flush everyday

5. The trash bin must be brushed everyday

Main clean:

McDonald makes a readily cleaning regulation to main clean. Readily cleaning regulation means anybody in any position must clean the peripheral position to keep the position clean.

What is more, the McDonald has its own special method to simplify the clean and sanitizing job and save the time spent on clean and sanitizing.

Firstly, they use lots of paper, plastic and other disposable tableware. This means, the worker only needs to put the table wares which are left by the customers when they finish into the garbage bin, and clean the table. Then everything is done.

Secondly, they use trays and trays of paper, which are convenient for the customers to carry, and reduce the chance to dirt the desk. And as a result ,save the time spent on cleaning the table.

Finally, all the kitchen equipments are of stainless steel surface. As the stainless steel surface is easy to clean, the efficiency of cleaning work is improved.

Pest control

Pest control is also of great importance. Nobody likes the presence of pests which transmit diseases. Here is what has been done in McDonald concerned about pest control:

1.McDonald especially focus on the controlling of cockroach.

2 In the entrance of the distribution center, a kind of special yellow light has been designed to drive the fly.

3 The inside of the distribution center has been painted white, especially the floor around the warehouse. Then it will be much easy to trace the cockroach and the mouse. and some actions can be taken to prevent bad ting from happening.

In McDonald, the keys to successful pest controls are as follows:

1. Correct identification of the pest is the first step in control, because information on pest biology, ecology, and behavior can be easily obtained if the pest is known.

2. It is important to detect pest problems early. Careful visual inspections can help in early detection of infestations.

3. Control measures must be timed to target the most vulnerable stage of pests. as many pests are susceptible to control measures at certain times in their lives.

Garbage disposal

There are many garbage need to dispose everyday in McDonald. In order to protect the environment , McDonald uses paper bags instead of bags. Here are the regulations related to garbage disposal in McDonald:

1 Disposal garbage day and never leave them until tomorrow.

2 Workers must clean the place around them at anytime.

3 Use different trash bins to separate the different kinds of garbage.

4 Wear gloves when dispose garbage

5 Wash hand after disposing garbage

Although garbage disposal is a small little thing, attention should be paid to, otherwise it will be harmful to the cleaning procedure.

Receiving foods

According to the HACCP, the receiving contains the following aspects, and this report wills analysis the situation in the McDonald following the HACCP:

1. Approved source.

To make all the products has the same flavor, the McDonald especially focus on the standardization of raw materials. And all the materials must be offered by the McDonald distribution center.

2. Choosing the suppliers

Knowing that suppliers are a major player in fulfilling its promise and adhering to its social responsibility, McDonal”„¢s ensures 100% eligibility before adding any resource to its database of approved suppliers. To quality as a McDonald”„¢s supplier, they must meet the McDonald”„¢s internal food safety standards, product specification and farm biosecurity policies

3. Guality supervision and inspection

The McDonald has stringent procurement standards. The purchasing department is responsible for quality supervision and inspection of the raw materials of the suppliers. When a defective product is found, it should be return immediately. And the suppliers should solve the problem as soon as possible. If the suppliers can not solve the problem before the deadline, their qualification for suppliers will be canceled.

So the goods receiving procedure of the McDonald is following the HACCP.

Storing Foods

Storing foods is a funny thing for McDonald. According to the HACCP, the McDonald can store the hamburger that is not sold out as well as the method is correct and proper.

1. The French fries must be thrown away, if it can not be sold out within seven minutes.

2. The hamburger must be thrown away, if it can not be sold out within ten minutes. It is not because of food decay or food defect.

The McDonald insists on offering the most valuable and qualified food to the customers. And this is just right the reason why the McDonald does what is mentioned above.

So, storing foods is in fact not only a funny thing for McDonald but also a serious thing for McDonald. And through the following statements one can see, how serious it is:

1. The temperature inside the house for cold storage should be between 1 and 4, and the temperature of the house for cold storage should be between -22°~18°.

2. Special attention should be paid to the storage of hamburger, otherwise accident will be easy to happen ,if it is not storied under the standard temperature.

3. The storage of food and materials should be obey to the regulations.

And it definitely follows the HACCP, or even does a greater job.

Cooling and Defrosting

Cooling is a useful way to keep most of the food or materials fresh.

When inspect whether the food is fresh or not, McDonald pays much attention to the test of temperature, especially the temperature control of the frozen food. The workers much inspect every product to make sure it is under the condition of cooling.

The main principle for the refrigerate is insisting -“FIFO”, the FIFO stands for first in first out.

Special methods have been made, concerned about how to organize the food, for example, there can only be six boxes of French fries up forward.

Before the food being cooled, the manager need to inspect the temperature and the quality of the goods.

Cooking and Holding

The reported foodborne illness cases per year were 76 millions in the US(Tauxe, 2002) and 9.4 millions in the UK(Walker, et al, 2003).Improper food handling is responsible for 97% of food borne illness associated catering(Griffith CJ, 2000). The McDonald pays much attention to cooking and handling procedure. The main principle for cooking is -“less amount many time” which can ensure the high quality and high fresh level of the food. For instance, twelve hamburgers should be made in four minutes; workers can not cook the twelve hamburgers at one time. The time figured out for making one hamburger is one handured and forty-five senconds, take the additional time into consideration, humburgers can be made in ten minutes. Nearly all foods in the McDonald have the specific holding time, the holding time for humbuegers is ten minutes, for french fries is seven minutes, for apple pie is ten minutes, and for coffee is thirty minutes, and the temperature of the milk sent by the supplier must be under 4┞ƒ , otherwise, it will be returned.

Conclusions

In conclusion, workplace hygiene is very important to McDonald which does a good job in such eight aspects above-mentioned. McDonald”„¢s ways to manage the workplace hygiene can be good references for other similar establishments. Beause of the work for hygiene is systematic, there may be some behaviours not conform to specified requirements exsit, for instance, some worker may omit washing, McDonald still needs to make better use of the HACCP to make the situation even better.

References

Griffith, CJ 2000. Food safety in catering establishments, in: Safe Handling of Foods, JM Farber and ECD Todd, Eds., Marcel Dekker, New York, 235-256.

G.Campbell-Platt 2002. HACCP/food safety objectives. Food Control ,13, PP. 353.

Panisello,P.J, &Quantick,P.C 2001. Technical barriers to hazard analysis critical control point. Food Control,12(3), PP. 165-173.

Sarah Fister Gale 2006. CASE STUDIES IN FOOD PROTECTION McDonaldds USA: A Golden Arch of Supply Chain Food Safety. Food Safety Magazine [Online] Issue February/March 2006, Available at:http://www.foodsafetymagazine.com/article.asp?id=491&sub=sub1 [Accessed 12 Sep 2009]

Tauxe, R.V 2002. Surveillance and investigation of food borne diseases. Food Control,13,PP. 363-369.

Walker, E.,Pritchard,C., &Forsythe,S. 2003. Hazard analysis critical control point and prerequisite programme implementation in small and medium size food business. Food Control,14, PP. 169-174.

Yi-Mei Sun., H.W.Ockerman 2005. A review of the needs and current applications of hazard analysis and critical control point(HACCP) system in foodservice areas. Food Control,16, PP. 325-332.