Kitchen hygiene, freedom from ailments at Rs. 100 a day

Spending as little as Rs100 a day can ensure hygiene in kitchens and keep food-related ailments at bay. During the third workshop organised as part of 's Hygiene for kitchens campaign, experts said roadside vendors, too, can ensure hygiene by spending just Rs20 a day.
The workshop — which focused on hospital canteens — was organised by  in association with Equinox Labs and Hinduja hospital on Wednesday. Head of business relations at Equinox Ashwin Bhadri told an audience that included FDA commissioner for Mumbai, Mahesh Zagade, about 30 ways of ensuring a clean kitchen without spending too much.
"Does it cost you money to ensure that your products are kept six inches off the ground? No. To keep them covered and insect free? No. Keeping vegetarian and non-vegetarian food separately? Making sure perishable food does not stay out, monitoring temperature of cooking and storage? None of these measures cost anything," said Bhadri.
There were, however, certain things like food sanitizers, sanitary wear for kitchen staff and burners to heat cooked food at proper temperature that involved spending. But according to Bhadri's cost analysis, the expenses were minimal.
"You need to purchase food sanitizers. For a big kitchen, a year's supply will cost Rs10,000 and we are keeping the figure on the higher side. Cling film to cover food is Rs50 per roll. Assuming you will use 10 rolls a year, the cost comes to Rs5,000," he said.

"A laser thermometer is for Rs3,500, stickers for labelling food containers will cost Rs1,000 for the year, and small burners to keep the food at the right temperature is for Rs4,000," said Bhadri. "Add this to Rs10,000 that we are setting aside for sanitary gear like gloves, hairnets, aprons and you have a total cost of Rs33,500 a year. That comes to less than Rs100 a day. If as a canteen of a big organisation, you cannot afford Rs100 a day for hygiene, you shouldn't be in this business."
Bhadri also said roadside vendors were very conscious about food hygiene. "We've done a project with roadside vendors at Juhu beach and trained them. If you go to Juhu beach, you will find the most hygiene-conscious vendors. We told them that if they spend a rupee extra to buy gloves, they will be able to charge a rupee more to every customer because they are cleaner and safer than all other vendors. So they spend Rs20 extra on hygiene and earn Rs200-Rs300 more," he said.
 had earlier conducted two workshops as part of its campaign - at Khalsa college and KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research. They focussed on hygiene in college canteens. State health minister Suresh Shetty attended the workshops apart from college principals and canteen owners.