Operating a Retail Food Establishment During a Boil Order
After historic flooding in our neighboring towns here in Montana I have received an influx of calls on how to safely operate a retail food establishment during a boil order. I want to get straight to the point, but I first must say that our hearts go out to all those effected by the historic flooding in Yellowstone National Park, Red Lodge, and Gardiner, Montana, and surrounding areas.
Everything that I am about to outline is based on my experience as a sanitarian and based on conversations that I have had with current sanitarians in Montana. This is in no way official advice and is not intended to supersede any advice/requirements given by your local sanitarian. When in doubt, contact your local environmental health office for official requirements.
Let’s get started…
In a general sense, when there is a boil order in effect, the water supply is deemed to be unsafe and could be contaminated with pathogens such as Giardiasis (Giardia), Cryptosporidiosis (Cryptosporidium), Escherichia coli O157:H7, and many other very harmful, hazardous, and potentially deadly pathogens.
Your local sanitarian has hopefully given you some guidance on whether or not you are safe to operate. If they have given you indication that you can operate while the boil order is in effect, then below are certain food safety requirements to focus on to ensure that the food you are providing is safe and pathogen-free.
If you are allowed to operate during the boil order there are certain things that you will want to be sure to do as well as certain areas of food safety that you have control over.
You will likely be instructed to only use disposable plates, cups, utensils, etc.
Any water that is going to be used for drinking or cooking needs to be bottled or boiled.
Any water used for handwashing needs to either be bottled or boiled.
You will want to pay particular attention to the concentration of your sanitizer buckets/three compartment sink sanitizer concentration.
Be sure to keep your towels in your properly maintained sanitizer buckets when not in use.
Use of your dish washer whether it is a chemical dish washer or a high temperature dish washer should be an adequate means of dish washing with out further need for additional sanitization measures.
Produce must be washed with bottled or boiled order. If this cannot be done pre-washed produce must be purchased.
Ice - ice must be purchased from a safe supplier. Ice machines must be cleaned and disinfected before use and after boil order is lifted.
I will explain each of the points listed above in the points below.
Disposable plates, cups, utensils, etc. - In the event of a boil order, you will want to minimize the use of water in your facility. Using only disposable plates, utensils, cups, etc. minimizes the amount of dishes you will need to do while the boil order is in effect. Clean dishes are essentially like ready-to-eat foods. You don’t want them coming in contact with contaminated water.
Any water used for cooking or drinking needs to be bottled - During a boil order there is the potential for pathogens in the water supply. Water that is going to be consumed by your customers needs to be bottled. If you are able to get a Culligan dispenser or another means of large containers of bottled water, that will be your best bet in the event of an extended emergency.
Handwashing water needs to be boiled or bottled - For cooking and drinking I would definitely recommend using bottled water over boiled water as the hassle of boiled water will quickly become evident. Handwashing water is a good opportunity to save your bottled water because I would recommend simply boiling water in this case. Poor personal hygiene is the number one cause of foodborne illness in our country and what can be gleaned from that fact is that we know how important it is to wash our hands. In the event of a boil order you will need to boil water and put it into a Cambro or coffee urn type container. You will need to ensure that the container can maintain the water temperature to at least 100°F at all times and that you also have soap, single-use paper towels, and a garbage can nearby. Having hot water of at least 100°’F is a requirement to operate and it is considered an imminent health hazard to not have hot water. This is one of the areas that you have control over in the event of an emergency. I would frequently check the temperature of the water as well as monitor the frequency of use from your staff. “Inconvenience” is a cause for staff to not use the handwashing station so you definitely want to keep an eye on food handling during this time.
Sanitizer buckets - Whether you use chlorine or quaternary ammonium as your sanitizer you should be fine to use water from your public water supply without boiling it. Similar to monitoring handwashing you will want to be sure to have test strips and monitor the concentration of your sanitizer buckets. Chlorine sanitizer buckets must be maintained between 50-99 parts per million (ppm) and quaternary ammonium sanitizers must be maintained as per manufacturers recommendations, which is typically between 150-400ppm. Having sanitizer buckets that are not properly maintained are a huge risk for having a waterborne foodborne illness outbreak in your facility. Having properly maintained sanitizer buckets should be adequate protect from harmful pathogens. Make sure to check buckets at least every two hours.
Towels - Be sure to keep your towels in your properly maintained sanitizer buckets when not in use. During normal times, towels are required to be stored in your properly maintained sanitizer bucket or to be in use. If towels are left sitting out around the kitchen, pathogens are given the opportunity to grow. This is a risk during normal conditions. When operating under a boil order, the risk of a foodborne illness outbreak increases because if you are using water that may contain pathogens and then towels are left sitting out - this increases the chance of pathogens growing to unsafe levels and causing foodborne illness. For this reason you want to make sure that any towels that have been left sitting out are placed in the dirty towel bin and replaced with new ones.
Washing Dishes - You shouldn’t need to change your dish washing procedures much, but you will want to monitor the sanitizing step to ensure that the dishes are properly being sanitized. You are okay to set up you three compartment sink with water from the public water supply, but you will need to regularly check the concentration of the sanitizer in the third compartment. Make sure that your sanitizing compartment is maintained at required the ppm. Ppm requirements for your three compartment sink are the same as the requirements listed above for your sanitizer buckets. Regularly check your dish machines to ensure that they are properly sanitizing. Chlorine dish machines must be maintained between 50-99ppm and high temperature dish machines must maintain hot water that is at least 165°F when it reaches the surface of the dish. If you are unsure of how to check this, send me a message!
Produce - Produce that is required to be washed must be washed using bottled or boiled water. Due to the inconvenience of this and the amount of water you will need to do so, I would recommend either removing produce from the menu during the time of emergency or purchasing pre-washed produce if it is available.
Ice - After the boil order is lifted you will need to clean and sanitize your ice machine before using it again. During the boil order you will need to purchase ice from an approved supplier.
All in all it is a tremendous effort to operate a retail food operation during a boil order. We commend you for doing so and we hope that this article helps even a little bit in reducing the stress of the situation. Let us know what else we can do to help. We see you and we appreciate you. Thank you to our local food and beverage operators for being the hardworking superstars that you are.
Can you think of anything that I left out? Do you have additional questions that you would like answered? Comment below so we can discuss.