Another major problem in the kitchen is the supply of food, which is essen tial, but is also a primary and dangerous means of contamination, if not carried out correctly.
Therefore, the problems of the structure i.e. limited space, poor manage ment, contamination and deterioration, have a direct affect on products.
Products supplied daily are the first serious problem because often su pliers are not reliable (delivery schedules are not maintained or required
items not supplied). Such daily deliveries are only necessary for certain products e.g. salad, vegetables, fish, some dairy products, but it is not necessary for many other products which can be bought in bulk, and then stored and used as and when required. This bulk buying method is easy and useful, but can also be dangerous because, if suitable areas for the storage of these products are not available (tinned food, cold cuts, frozen food) the possibility of cross-contamination, resulting from either internal or external agents, increases dramatically. The conse quences of errors in stocking and storage are:
• Sell by dates of products are not immediately controllable resulting in the wastage of products and therefore money;
• Daily wastage increases, in that products, especially those subject to rapid deterioration, are no longer fresh and the selection of products can be particularly time consuming.
In such a situation, one cannot even consider semi-prepared products, given their difficulty to manage (from a hygiene point of view) and their general low quality.
As if this is not enough, the most suitable environments for stocking, apart from being nearby, should be multiple. In the ideal kitchen, there should be a general storage area, a larder, a cold room for frozen foods, one for vegetables, fruit and cold cuts, one for meat, another for fish and a place to store waste, as well as all the necessary refrigerators for the kitchen, near to the preparation zone, to contain products used daily.