Skip navigation

Delivery poses unique food-safety challenges

It’s one thing to manage food safety from the kitchen to the dining room, but it’s another matter to ensure that delivered food is still safe. The food delivered from Lettuce Entertain You’s Café Ba-BaReeba!’s via a third-party service gives executive chef Timothy Cottini some concern since he can’t control the process once the order’s left the Chicago restaurant.

“The sanitation aspect of it is a big concern for us,” said Cottini. “It seems simple and people don’t really think about it. But we have to do everything we can on our end to ensure the food’s safe.”

For food quality alone, Cottini’s staff knows to sort all items by temperature, a move that’s essential for reducing bacterial growth. All containers are labeled clearly, and any hot foods come with explicit reheating instructions to help on the receiving end.

“We always make sure all our food is cooked to the proper temperature here, but that only holds so long as it’s going to the customer,” he said. “We know customers might not finish all they get, so it becomes a concern for us that they’d let something sit in the fridge for too long.”

The restaurant recommends all food delivered or carried out is consumed no more than 36 hours after the restaurant prepares it. Printed instructions also lead customers to reheat foods to 165 degrees if they’re having leftovers.

“If it’s a cold item, we tell them to please store it under 40 degrees,” he said, adding that all containers have date stickers on them. “We’re concerned they’d let it sit for a week, come home famished some day after work and try to eat it.”

Donatella Arpaia, owner of Mia Dona in Manhattan, said a key reason the restaurant has its own delivery staff is to ensure food is handled safely all the way to the customer. The delivery crew is equipped with an array of hot and cold bags, and the system is designed to have a driver or runner waiting when food comes up.

“We train them to be professionals and to care for the food as if it were in the restaurant. We don’t want food waiting in the window,” she said. “We care very much about our name and our reputation, and we don’t to take chances just because it’s delivery.”

Hide comments

Comments

  • Allowed HTML tags: <em> <strong> <blockquote> <br> <p>

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Publish