What is a kitchen cleaning checklist?

Kitchen cleaning checklists help you keep your kitchen clean and sanitary. Areas of particular focus include the floor, surfaces, and appliances, as well as the hygiene of your staff.

Kitchen cleaning is essential in the food and hospitality industry. A kitchen cleaning plan will help you avoid contaminating food and spreading viruses or bacteria. In addition, you need a good kitchen cleaning plan to pass inspections by authorities.

In this article, you can expect:

1. What value a kitchen cleaning checklist has

2. How digital checklists are pushing kitchen cleaning

The value of a kitchen cleaning checklist

Restaurants, hotels, delis and grocery stores should be prepared for random inspections. Poor kitchen hygiene and practices are a threat to the success and continued existence of the business. The consequence can be fines, poor ratings and, in the worst case, shutdown of the business.

So a daily cleaning of the kitchen is essential for any business. Using a kitchen cleaning checklist will give you the confidence to pass an unannounced health inspection at any time:

1. A better overview

The bigger the kitchen, the harder it is to have an overview of all the kitchen areas. Use a kitchen cleaning checklist, so that you won’t forget a thing. Moreover, certainly knowing you didn’t forget anything, makes your work less stressful.

In general, having a better overview of your tasks makes it easier to coordinate and plan kitchen cleaning. Include a kitchen cleaning schedule in your checklist to plan the cleaning process more precisely.

2. Keep track of all critical areas in your kitchen

A kitchen normally has a lot areas which makes it hard for you to keep track of them, especially of the critical ones that need even more attention. Use a new page for each area to have a better overview of each area. The 5 most crucial areas in every kitchen are:

1. Kitchen equipment
   

   Clean your kitchen utensils after each use in order to prevent transmission of bacteria and alike. Kitchen utensils include knives, pots, pans or other items you use to cook.



2. Kitchen floors
   

   Properly clean and sanitize the floor every day before closing the kitchen or when you spilled something on the floor. That way you prevent staff falling or tripping, germ formation that lead to diseases and the attraction of vermin by food residues.



3. Ovens
   

   Clean the ovens daily in order to avoid deposits but also to reduce the risk of fires. Remove any grease and food residues using a brush, washcloth or scraper.



4. Garbage cans

   Improper garbage disposal can lead to an infestation due to vermin. Keep the area around garbage cans clean to help create a hygienic and safe environment for employees that come into contact with the bins.



5. Walk-in refrigerators
   

   Walk-in refrigerators are used for different kinds of food. Therefore, it is crucial to keep them clean and free of any bacteria to prevent contamination. Clean the refrigerators weekly and don’t forget the shelves and walls!

3. Better personal hygiene

It is not only the kitchen itself that matters in kitchen cleaning but also the hygiene of the employees. A lack of body care is often a reason for food poisoning. Personal hygiene includes:

• clean and suitable clothing
• good hand washing methods
• short and clean fingernails
• gloves and hairnets
• changing aprons for different food/stations

Use a checklist for body care too or hang up signs and posters showing proper body care.

How modern technology helps you with kitchen cleaning

As mentioned earlier, checklists make work and planning much easier. Digital kitchen cleaning checklists make it even easier for you to get your kitchen tasks done

Lumiform is a powerful mobile inspection app that revolutionizes your kitchen cleaning. Streamline and automate your kitchen cleaning schedule with paperless inspections and checklists via smartphone or tablet.

• Get a general overview of everything that happens in the kitchen.


• Cleaning processes or inspections are completed about 30%-50% faster, depending on the application.


• Easier analysis of all data and faster identification of areas that need more attention.


• Increase the efficiency of your cleaning processes: Resolve incidents up to 4x faster than before through more efficient communication within the team, with third parties, and with management, as well as faster incident reporting.


• Quality and safety are now measurable and you can use the data to continuously improve processes.


• All results, images, and comments are automatically bundled into a digital report.


• With Lumiform's flexible checklist builder, you optimize internal controls and processes at any time. The user-friendly interface guides the auditor through the audit, and no training is required.

To help you get started, we've compiled the best kitchen cleaning checklists. Create your own custom kitchen cleaning schedule by downloading a template for free and customizing it to your needs.