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Inventory and control of materials are one part of the stewarding departments responsibility, particularly the chief stewards. This includes, of course, control of chemicals. Now, the primary reason for controlling the use of chemicals is to save money.
Why Control the Use of Chemicals?
As stated above, the main reason why the stewarding department has to control their use of chemicals such as cleaning agents, detergents, sanitizers, etc. is to save money, of course. Let us say for example that your restaurant is enjoying a lot of sales and is reaping huge profits, money wise. Now, if your stewarding department is not using chemicals appropriately, then some of your profits could be wasted on buying chemicals. Think of the money that you could have saved if your stewarding department only knew how to use chemicals the right way. Look at it this way, if the stewarding department is using too much detergent when washing the dishes, you are sure to waste precious resources. After all, you will need more water to rinse of the soap, and more electricity to make the dish washing machine run.
Another reason why chemical control is very important is because you want to protect the health and safety of your guests. If the stewarding department makes use of too much soap and detergent in cleaning and washing kitchen items such as dinnerware, silverware, glassware, etc., then there could be the risk of leaving soap residues on the items. Now, if there are soap residues on the kitchen items, especially those that will come into contact with the mouth of the guests, then it could be very harmful to them. On the other hand, use too little, and you run the risk of not washing and cleaning the kitchen items properly. You may not be able to remove the soils and bacteria from the items, and again, this is harmful to your guests.
For this reason, the chief steward has to stress to his staff the importance of using the right amount of chemical as well as the appropriate chemical for a specific task.
Guidelines for Chemical Control
To have a very effective control over the chemicals, the chief steward has to first establish a par stock level, and this is done to each shift. The chief steward also has to assign the shift leader the responsibility of appropriately handling and dispensing of the chemicals. Fortunately, dispensing of chemicals is usually being done electronically by the kitchen machines such as the dish washing machine as well as the pot washing machine. The levels of the chemicals are monitored by the machine and dispensed accordingly, and all the kitchen steward has to do is to make sure that the chemicals are always at the appropriate levels.
However, for manual usage of the chemicals, the kitchen steward should know the proper usage of the chemical, especially when it comes to the dosage used. Training for this is commonly provided by the stewarding department before a new kitchen steward starts.
To check and see if the chemicals are being used the right way, the Stewarding Department should work closely together with the accounting department. These two departments could better monitor the use of chemicals by making a record of the monthly chemical consumption.
Sometimes, accidents happen. For this reason, the stewarding department staff should be taught on what to do in case of emergencies.
