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Kitchen hygiene is always important, whether in the home or in a commercial environment. In particular, for commercial catering providers, meeting food hygiene standards is of the utmost importance. Many organizations now implement good practice by making the cleaning of a cooking station at the end of a shift a part of their employee's normal procedure, and this goes a long way to keeping up hygiene standards.
Nevertheless, contaminants such as dirt, grease and bacteria will inevitably accumulate over time in hard to reach places such as behind or between work units, or on the walls and ceilings. The best way to address this inevitable build-up is to schedule regular deep-cleans by professionals who have the knowledge, experience and tools to efficiently clean those parts that cannot be readily cleaned on a day-to-day basis.
A professional kitchen deep-cleaning contractor will go about the cleaning process in a logical and systematic way. By way of an example, the contractor might follow a process along the following lines;
Firstly, the various kitchen appliances need to be dismantled so that their components can be assembled for immersion in a "diptank". A diptank is a vessel which is filled with hot water mixed with a suitable degreaser. Components that can be removed for dipping include; grease filters, oven trays, range tops and rings, fryer pans, grill trays, dismantled fan units as well as other heavily soiled items. The components that can be dismantled are immersed in the diptank, for a period of time according to the manufacturers' guidelines.
Next, in order to prepare for cleaning of the walls and surrounds where the kitchen will be exposed to water, all electrical items need to be isolated and all exposed switches covered with a waterproof tape of polythene cover.
Depending on the situation, some kitchen items will be best cleaned in an outside area. If so, then these are assembled and removed from the kitchen. Where possible, equipment is pulled out away from the nearest wall to ensure that thorough cleaning can be achieved both beneath and behind the equipment.
The inside areas to be cleaned are now scraped of all excess grease using wire brushes or scrapers, prior to applying an appropriate cleaning solution to the surfaces. Once cleaned, all excess dirt and cleaning chemicals are cleaned off all surfaces. Walls and ceilings are normally thoroughly steam cleaned with a steam vacuum appliance. Once this is completed, then the equipment can be returned into position.
Cooking and preparation areas are sanitised. Floor areas are then thoroughly cleaned with use of a steam cleaner and wet vacuum equipment.
Finally, the premises are tidied up - all rubbish and debris is removed, outside areas tidied up. The client will then be invited to inspect the work and once satisfied sign a customer acceptance form. If the work is undertaken out of hours (to avoid disrupting normal business operations) then the contractor may be responsible for locking up. In this case they will then make sure the site is secure, and keys returned to the designated place.
Professional kitchen deep-cleaning contractors are used to scheduling the deep-cleaning task, which may take several hours, at a time that avoids disrupting the kitchen's standard operational hours, and very often that means working over-night.
