All posts by david

The Importance of Food Safety in Bakeries

For more information on Promolux lighting or to request a quote, click on the links to the right.

Running a bakery is not child’s play. There are a lot of factors that need to be taken into consideration in order to make a bakery store thrive in the intensely competitive food industry. If you fail to get off to a flying start, your bakery business may never run as smoothly as you may have imagined it. One of the main areas where bakery business owners falter is food safety.

Ensuring food safety in bakery outlets has its own set of special requirements and features. Consumers who purchase baked goods are very meticulous about the nutritional value and the healthiness of such items. If you fail to meet certain basic standards of food safety and hygiene, then your bakery business will be in serious danger. If you persist in not paying attention to food safety equipment and measures, then your bakery store will soon go out of business.

In order to prevent such a disaster, you need to learn about important food safety considerations for all bakeries and baked goods sections. Here are some key areas that you should focus on.

Controlling pests

Pest control may sound like a silly matter, but it can actually be a problem of epic proportions. How embarrassing would it be for your customer to find the remains of a cockroach in a cupcake that they have purchased from your shop? Or how big of a blow would it be for your bakery’s reputation if a customer spots a creepy crawler inside your bakery display case? Incidents like these are not only humiliating, but they can pose a major threat to the survival of your business. Therefore, you need to make sure that you have invested sufficient resources in a proper pest control management system.

Employee hygiene

The employees, especially those who are directly involved in the manufacturing, processing and handling of baked goods, should follow a strict protocol that guidelines basic hygiene and cleanliness requirements. Employees should wear protective clothes and have their heads and hands covered when in direct contact with the food. They should be equipped in protective clothing even when they are touching the display cases. Employees should also be discouraged from wearing accessories such as ornaments or rings that pose a risk of food contamination.

Food safe lighting

Using ordinary lights for bakery display cases can have a number of detrimental effects on the quality of your baked goods. Exposure to intense lights leads to discoloration, photo degradation and reduction in the shelf life of food. All of these conditions can lead your business incurring financial losses due your negligence towards the harmful effects of inferior bakery display case lighting. Under such circumstances, your best option is to ensure that you use food safe lighting.

You can use Promolux lamps for this purpose since these emit minimal levels of the damaging visible spectrum and ultraviolet radiation. In fact, Promolux lamps can increase the shelf life of your baked goods by 50%.

The Photodegradation of Baked Goods Can Hurt Your Business

For more information on Promolux lighting or to request a quote, click on the links to the right.

Running a bakery outlet is one of the most difficult challenges in the field of entrepreneurship. Regardless of where the outlet is located, you can always expect plenty of competitors trying to overthrow you for a greater share of the market. This makes it a necessity for bakery shop owners to ensure that their business operations are perfectly streamlined. However, there are always obstacles which hinder your progress. One stumbling block to running a bakery outlet successfully is the photodegradation of baked goods.

Photodegradation is a serious problem

Photodegradation sounds like an overly complicated term that food safety regulators would use to fine bakery shop owners. In all fairness, there is nothing complicated or confusing about photodegradation. It is the simple, yet highly undesirable process by which light spoils your food. If you have never heard of photodegradation before, then the concept of light ruining your lovely bakery selection should be an absolute shocker. You must be asking yourself, “How could something that you use to accentuate the visual appeal of your baked goods end up being so harmful?” As strange as it may sound, photodegradation of baked goods is a serious problem and it affects hundreds and thousands of businesses every single year.

How photodegradation occurs

Sunlight, fluorescent lighting and incandescent lighting can all lead to photodegradation. As far as the bakery business is concerned, it is the food display case lighting which causes the harm. The light inside the bakery display cases is absorbed by the baked goods, which triggers a chemical reaction in the food. The chemical reaction takes place in specific components of the food. As a result of this, the baked goods can develop off flavors. The color of the food items can change as well. The light usually permeates the outer layer of the solid baked foods, leading to a distasteful discoloration on the surface.

Photodegradation can put you out of business

The slightest bit of changes in color and flavor in your baked goods can spell disaster for your business. Customers will not be willing to pay for baked goods that do not look, taste or smell fresh and delicious. Sales will drop and your business will be losing out to competition.

Ordinary lights cause photodegradation

If you find yourself in such a distressful situation, you need to realize that the bakery case lighting is not your enemy. Rather, it is the use of regular lighting in the bakery case which puts you in this predicament. Regular lighting is not ideal for the display of baked goods as they lead to severe photodegradation of baked goods. In other words, these lights are directly responsible for spoiling your precious food.

The need for specialty merchandising lamps

To solve this problem, you need to resort to the use of food safe lighting for bakeries. Much like food grade color, specialty merchandising lamps will not compromise the freshness, the quality or the appearance of your baked goods. If you want to enhance the shelf life of your baked goods and get your business back on track, then installing lamps like Promolux food safe lighting is your safest bet.