4 Cleaning Product Storage Tips For Restaurants
Many commercial cleaners used for high-level cleaning, especially in places like restaurants, have special storage requirements because of how heavy duty they are. In your home, the normal over-the-counter stuff you buy to handle your family's dirt and grime can be kept under the sink, or stored with minimal consideration for how potentially hazardous the chemicals are. If you are wondering how you should be storing cleaning products in a restaurant, below are 4 tips to help you out.
Never store chemicals near food
It is never a good idea to store cleaning products anywhere near food, or food preparation areas. If something inadvertently leaks out onto a preparation area, or worse yet, into raw ingredients, you may end up seriously harming a customer and have a large lawsuit on your hands, along with an injury on your conscience.
Always store chemicals in their original containers
It is one thing to buy a generic spray bottle for your home and fill in with an unknown blue cleaning liquid, but it is an entirely different matter when you are dealing with the public and, more importantly, with high level cleaning products. Things like industrial strength detergents, and cleaning agents for bar dishwashers, are dangerous and people need to know exactly what they are dealing with when around them.
Don't store chemicals near heat sources
Volatile chemicals, especially things stored in metal aerosol containers, should never be kept close to heat sources. You should never walk into a restaurant kitchen to see metal containers full of high level cleaning products sitting directly below the grill or fryer. In an enclosed space with so many flammable liquids in the vicinity, you are asking for disaster.
Always use safety posters to illustrate proper storage and use procedures
Get placards or posters with storage and safe-use directions for the cleaning products you use, and place them around the restaurant, in places employees frequent most. This will ensure your staff know how to handle and store the high-level cleaning products they’re working with.
Heavy duty industrial cleaning products are no joke and should be treated with a lot of respect. This means properly storing them so that they are safe to use and do not present a hazard to people working around them. Keep the above storage tips in mind and ensure that your restaurant, the customers and the employees are protected at all times.