Are you in the food truck business and want to be FDA compliant? here are 17 tips for preparing your food truck and passing your medical checks in the USA.
The food truck industry has gone through different eras not only in the United States of America. but in most of the countries of the world, you will find many entrepreneurs pitching their commercial tents in this industry.
Why start a truck business?
Statistics show that the annual income from food sales in the United States is about $ 1.2 billion, and the industry’s income has grown 12.4% in the past five years. The total number of food trucks in the United States is 4,130. Revenue from truck manufacturing has grown 12.4 percent over the past five years.
The median income from a food truck in the United States is around $ 290,556, and the median cost per order in a grocery truck is $ 12.40. The average amount needed to buy a food truck is around $ 85,000.
While the pickup truck industry is not new to the food and beverage industry, it is a known fact that the pickup truck industry continues to grow rapidly and there is still more room for growth in the industry. industry. Despite the introduction of some unfavorable laws and regulations in many cities across the United States, the food truck industry is still booming.
In fact, if you are planning to start your food truck business in the United States of America, you should be prepared to subject your business to the rules of a regulatory body that has the authority to regulate the industry.
For example, there are cases where food trucks have been closed until all employees are healthy again and the truck has been sterilized. Keeping a written record of your employees’ sick days helps prevent this and preserves your brand’s reputation.
The truth is, in order to have a successful food truck checkup, you must continue to maintain high standards and follow those guidelines.
Note that one of the main hurdles you need to be prepared to overcome is medical inspection of food trucks, and sadly, that’s not the only thing. Food truck sanitation checks are carried out at regular intervals to ensure that contaminated food is not sold to the public by food truck operators.
In order for you to prepare for and get a medical exam, you must first understand how they work and how you can prepare to get checked.
Why are food trucks subject to health inspections?
The reason food trucks undergo regular medical examinations is primarily to protect consumers from foodborne infections that can occur if food is handled or prepared properly.
In the United States of America, the regulatory body responsible for the health inspection of food trucks is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); They are legally required to comply with any food regulations in the United States of America The FDA Food Code contains specific rules by which state and county health departments model their retail food regulations.
Who carries out the health inspection of food trucks?
Truck health inspections are conducted by qualified medical inspectors and work for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at the federal, state, or local level. In order to work as a health inspector, you must have at least a university degree and you will be trained as an expert in quality, service and food preparation techniques.
Once trained, they must train truck owners and staff in safe food handling and preparation; inspect food trucks and carts to ensure compliance with local, state and federal health regulations; issue warnings or fines for breaking ground rules; Take samples as needed to identify possible sources of food poisoning or epidemics; and finally, prepare inspection reports that are available online or publicly at your local office.
While health checks and screening procedures may vary from county to county, city to city, and state to state in the United States of America, there are at at least three types of medical exams you need to undergo, and they are;
3 Categories of Food Truck Sanitary Inspections You Should Expect
- Regular inspection
Regular inspections are inspections that are performed on food trucks and other mobile food carts without notice. Here, the inspector examines all aspects of the food truck or cart to ensure compliance with local food regulations. Everything from employee hand washing practices to garbage disposal is covered during routine inspections.
- Verification of complaints
Complaints checks are carried out whenever a customer becomes ill or has made a complaint about possible unhealthy practices. A medical examiner is expected to examine your business processes and equipment to ensure they are safe for food retailing to the public.
- Follow-up control
Follow-up checks are done after the truck driver has had some time to correct critical irregularities, for example, if a customer makes a complaint and a medical inspector arrives and finds that some of the complaints are true, they’ll tell you. give time to correct the situation, and if they will come to visit and there will be no change, your license may be revoked or you will be fined.
How to prepare your food truck for sanitary inspections
To pass a sanitary inspection with vans you have to stay above the board and stay above the board means you have to do regular self-checks. This is important because in the United States, some cities will tell you when you should be inspected, while other cities will just send random inspectors to food establishments.
Most cities check food trucks and other food vendors on average once or twice a year. When getting ready for your Food Truck Health Check you should use this five step self check guide to make sure you’re ready to use flying flowers every time.
- Schedule a random self-test
An important factor to consider when performing a self-test for your food truck is the random scheduling of the self-test. In fact, your employees need to be caught off guard to know their preparedness. This will give you the probable results that you will get when visiting government health inspectors.
- Demonstrate professionalism
Just because you’re doing a self-test doesn’t mean you have to be random about it. In fact, you should be stricter than the Federal Health Inspector. Your employees should be aware that this is not routine business and they should be prepared to take responsibility if something under their supervision does not meet the expected standard in a mock inspection. Make sure you have the exact form used by health inspectors and be sure to fill it out and follow it.
- Make sure you check everything
If you need to get it right and pass a formal medical exam, you need to make sure you check everything on a mock exam. You should pay close attention to anything on your food truck, even if it has been recently removed. Just make sure you put yourself in the shoes of official health inspectors and go into the details while you do your job.
You have to check the cooking procedures, you have to check the entry and exit of the food cart, you have to check your equipment, you have to check your licenses, permits and all documents, and you have to check your employees among other things.
- Check your employees
The health check is not done without employee verification; those involved in preparing and serving food. The truth is that if a sick worker is handling food, a tendency to contaminate the food cannot be ruled out, so it is necessary to examine, train and upgrade it so that you can pass the exam. medical when the time comes.
- Review your results
Finally, you should get the result and the only way to improve the result is to check the self-test results. The essence of considering your results when preparing your food truck for a medical exam cannot be overstated.
When reviewing your results, you should work with your team, examine the areas where you scored low, and receive suggestions from your teams on how to improve in those areas. With it, you can stay prepared. Please note that after the overhaul, if necessary, you can make every effort to hire a professional to educate and retrain your staff so that they can stay on top of the board and undergo exams if needed.
17 steps to follow to get a checkup
If you’ve read all of the above, here’s what you need to do to be able to get your food truck ready for regular health checks;
- Above all, to have a successful health check with each call, you must regularly and properly wash your hands in your food truck, especially by the chefs and waiters (all those who take care of the food).
- You need to make sure that all of your ingredients and products come from a licensed and responsible source, such as grocery stores and food farms.
- You need to make sure that the food ingredients and some ready meals are kept at the correct temperature. With foodborne illnesses being the most dangerous, medical inspectors pay attention to food stocks and the temperatures in which meat, poultry and seafood are stored. It also looks for bacteria, mold, and other health benefits. associated risks.
- You need to make sure that you have implemented processes and a structure that will help you avoid cross-contamination of raw and raw ingredients.
- You need to make sure your food storage containers are properly labeled.
- You need to make sure that the approval from your mobile phone provider is valid and valid for the type of business you do.
- You need to make sure that the floors, walls, and ceilings in your commercial kitchen and food truck are properly cleaned and kept clean at all times.
- You need to make sure your meat thermometers are properly calibrated for accurate readings, and your cooks use meat thermometers to make sure meat is cooked properly and at the right temperature.
- You need to make sure that you and your staff not only read health codes, but are trained and retrained.
- You should ensure that all paper products and other customer service items are kept in a clean area until they are needed and cooked foods are quickly served or refrigerated.
- You need to make sure that garbage and food scraps are disposed of properly and that the exterior of the truck is clean and in good repair.
- You need to make sure that all of your licenses and permits are in order and, more importantly, that the truck has proper records for everything (including melee ash, ingredients, cleanup schedules, etc.).
- You need to make sure that pest control conforms to global best practices.
- It is very important that you work effectively and healthily with friendly approaches or procedures to limit bare-handed contact with ready-to-eat foods. In fact, you need to make sure that all of your employees are up to date on food safety and can answer questions about proper handling and cooking procedures.
- You must ensure that all of your employees are in good health, well groomed, and wear appropriate protective clothing or clothing, and that your employees’ belongings are kept away from food preparation areas.
- It is also very important that you develop a policy for reporting illnesses or injuries to your employees. This is because if a customer complains of getting sick after buying and eating food from the food truck, forensic pathologists will check your medical records to see if the patient has handled the food and samples will be taken to check if they are. are contaminated. if the food. sickness.
In conclusion, if you can read the above article and continue to apply all of the above practical tips and tricks, you can be sure that every time the sanitary inspectors come to inspect your food truck, you will certainly, little the time and the way matter. how they decide to inspect… Good luck to you and your food truck business.
