Safe Ice Handling

Keeping a clean ice machine could save lives! Back in 2002, 80 people became ill and even a death of a boy in Phoenix took place because of infection of the Norovirus. The virus was traced back to contaminated ice. This is why regular cleaning and maintenance of your commercial ice machine is crucial, especially when owning a restaurant business where thousands of pounds of ice are produced. Properly handling ice is just as important as cleaning the ice machine itself, since most contaminants are introduced by humans.

Here are some ways to reduce ice contamination:

• Do not touch the ice with bare hands, but for some reason it must be handled by hand, wear food gloves.
• Do not allow an object that has been touched by hands or other contaminated items to touch the ice. Use a scoop to transfer ice into cups or glass then place the scoop outside of the bin, not inside with the ice. Never use cups or tumblers to scoop ice.
• Make sure that employees wash hands regularly.
• Never place the ice back into the ice machine once it has been removed. Instead to avoid waste, save the ice for and use the water to clean surfaces such as windows and floors.