As employees are returning to the workplace, it’s time for employers to take a hard look at ways to keep their teams safe and comfortable being back together again. The company break room will likely be a gathering place once again for co-workers, so keeping that space sanitized is important for your entire team’s safety and well-being.
Break Room Sanitization Audit
Look around your office break room and office coffee station for an informal break room audit.
- Are there adequate cleaning and sanitization supplies readily available for everyone to use?
- Is there proper signage for hand washing?
- Is your space set up physically, or are there guidelines in place to enable social distancing?
- Do you have PPE on hand for those who feel more comfortable wearing a mask or using gloves to handle items in common areas?
- Have you implemented air and/or surface sanitization protocols or installed products that inactivate germs in your space?
- How about the pour containers used for dry cereals and snacks—how often are those cleaned and sanitized?
Sanitization of Snack Bins Keep Employee Areas More Hygienic
At Corporate Essentials, we use airtight pour containers that are swapped out by our pantry service technicians every time they visit our clients to restock their break rooms or micro markets. They are returned to our location to be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized. Here’s how that works:
Our pantry service technicians come according to a pre-arranged schedule to restock all the refreshments, including the cereals and snacks, such as nuts, granola, small cookies and candies, pretzels and chips, and dried fruit. When they do this, they do not top off the snack bins; rather, all containers are removed for machine power cleaning according to the highest food safety standards. At each visit, they replace outgoing containers with newly sanitized bins with a fresh supply of everyone’s favorite snacks.
If you’re wondering where those used containers go:
- At Corporate Essentials’ facility, the containers are placed inside a special foodservice ware washer to be power cleaned with a mixture of hot water (190 degrees F) and detergent to destroy and clean debris
- The containers are placed upside down in the commercial dishwashing machine when being cleaned, with the pressurized mix shooting up from the bottom of the machine to remove all contents and clean the entire interior and exterior surfaces.
- Cleaned containers are then placed on a drying rack under the pressure of four fans
- Once clean and dry, they are refilled with the appropriate snacks and brought to our customers’ locations.
- All of this work is performed by properly protected staff and the special cleaning room is inspected by the health department as well.
Additional Safety Measures
Each container has a label with commonly used, easily recognized dietary icons that clearly indicate if the snack or cereal inside contains common allergens, such as containing (or not containing) gluten, dairy, soy, and nuts; and if the product is appropriate for vegetarians or vegans. The containers all have nutrition fact labels and they are BPA free, ensuring that this potentially harmful chemical is not in contact with the foods inside—an additional level of assurance for employees and visitors to your office break room.
To keep our customers’ break rooms as sanitized and hygienic as possible—especially with cold and flu season coming—Corporate Essentials also carries cleaning and janitorial supplies as well as PPE–from masks and gloves to innovative air and surface sanitization products—to help employers keep their teams safe from airborne and surface pathogens and allergens.
As you prepare to bring your team back to the workplace—or if you’re looking for ways to up your on-site sanitizing game—contact us for a consultation or for more information about keeping your team feeling good about being at the office, together again.
