Kitchen Cloths

Wiping cloths can pick up bacteria when used to clean work surfaces and equipment. Once a cloth has bacteria on it the bacteria can easily be transferred to other surfaces or equipment.

The danger arises particularly when the cloth has been used for wiping areas where raw meat and poultry have been prepared and then used elsewhere.

You can think of cloths as being used to keep things clean but they can just as easily become a means of spreading bacteria. To prevent this happening:

• keep cloths separate for use with different foods
• keep cloths used for raw foods out of other food areas
• use disposable cloths if available
• only work with clean cloths

Boil and disinfect cloths frequently.

This is Chapter Three, Part Ten in a series of articles broadly similar to the course offered by the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health for its Food Hygiene Certificate.
Part Eleven: Food handler-to-food contamination
Return to the start of Chapter Three