Keep your ice machine clean and safe
In busy bar and restaurant environments, ice machines are in constant use. But with numerous serving staff, the risk of contamination is high.
It’s important that stringent ice machine hygiene is carried out regularly.
Ensuring the safe treatment of ice is an essential part of creating a fully food-safe environment. With bacteria so easily transferred through cross-contamination, it’s important that all precautions are taken to reduce the risk to both staff and customers.
The highly pressurised environment of a busy bar or restaurant means that routine maintenance can often be overlooked. But it’s important to remember that the safety and quality of your ice supply are just as important as every other aspect of your food safety regime. Having a considered maintenance plan for your ice hygiene will help you, your staff and your customers stay safe.
Why it’s important to service your equipment regularly
Put simply, making sure that your ice machine is serviced regularly helps to reduce the risk of bacteria build-up within the unit.
Our commercial ice machine cleaning service includes a full deep clean and system flush using an approved descaling solution. Once completed, we will issue a full report certificate that you can present to an Environmental Health Officer upon inspection.
We recommend this be done quarterly to keep the unit as hygienic as possible. At Certa Service, we are happy to offer reduced rates to customers who sign up to annual contacts for the cleans.
Health risks associated with
poor ice hygiene can include:
- Norovirus
- E.coli
- Salmonella
- Hepatitis A
- Legionnaire’s Disease
Did you know?
of operators acknowledge that they were unaware of how often the ice-machine and especially the water filters needed to be cleaned.
5 simple ways your staff can help
Prevention is always better than the cure. Training and educating your staff to understand the importance of good ice hygiene makes perfect sense for creating a best practice environment in your bar or kitchen. Following these few simple steps can help keep your ice supply clean and safe.
- Make sure hands are always clean
- Always use a sanitised scoop which is not kept in the main bin
- Ongoing training and education
- Move ice storage away from customer reach
- Empty the ice bin completely and clean at least once a week
What does a Certa Service Ice Machine Hygiene service include?
We carry out the following works during a service.
- Full descale of machine using an approved solution.
- Thorough hygiene clean of the machine.
- Full mechanical check and report.
- We will issue a report certificate upon completion. This can be presented to the E.H.O. upon inspection.
Other services we offer
Our experienced engineers can maintain and repair the whole range of equipment found in any commercial kitchen. We provide a friendly, efficient, and reliable service to all types of commercial catering operations.
