Finding an Appropriate Time for a Thorough Kitchen Deep Clean Can be Challenging

Copyright (c) 2012 Alison Withers

People who have the responsibility for managing a large commercial catering operation have to comply with a number of regulations covering the safety of employees and the food as well as environmental health and fire safety issues.

One part of keeping on top of all these is making sure that the kitchen is kept immaculately clean and well maintained, but fitting in ensuring that these tasks are done around the daily work schedule can be difficult.

There are a number of issues that have to be considered from the type of establishment and the style and frequency of cooking to the time when the annual insurance is due for renewal.

For example, restaurants and hotels can experience seasonal peaks and troughs. It may be that there is a dip in the numbers of diners or guests after the Christmas and New Year Holidays, Easter and the Summer Holidays. After a particularly busy period there is also likely to have been a build-up of greasy deposits in hard to reach places. Scheduling kitchen deep cleaning for a fallow period will help to keep on top of the hygiene and health and safety issues as well as to prepare for the next peak in business.

The obvious time for a school or college to arrange for a kitchen deep clean is during the holidays, when demand on restaurant and cafeteria is at its lowest. When it comes to the hospital, office or works canteen, however, it can be much more difficult to find a fallow period, especially if the organisation is operating shifts that cover 24 hour periods. A weekend might be a solution or perhaps an annual works shut down period it there is one.

The type of cuisine being cooked and the frequency of mealtimes is another issue that has to be considered. Those kitchens that produce food that requires a lot of frying or use of oils and spices are likely to build up deposits more quickly and therefore need a deep clean more than once a year.

If the organisation expects to undergo regular, scheduled Health and Safety or Environmental Health inspections these might dictate when cleaning needs to be done and similarly when the time comes round to renew the insurance premium a certificate showing that the kitchen has been cleaned thoroughly and regularly can make a difference to the cost of the premium or whether the insurers will actually be willing to cover the business at all.

It is unlikely that any organisation will be able to spare key workers to carry out the cleaning or will have the training in Health and Safety or operating specialist equipment that is one of the benefits of employing professional deep cleaning services.

They will be used to assessing the scale of the work and how long it will take. They will usually be able to provide evidence of properly trained staff, of having the appropriate equipment and cleaning materials and will be able to offer services to a schedule that fits around the kitchen's normal working patterns.

It can therefore be far less disruptive and far more cost effective to employ a professional cleaning company to carry out this regular chore than to try and do it in-house.


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Kitchen deep cleaning is a thorough top down operation that needs to be carried out at regular intervals to comply with a variety of regulations.  It can be hard to find a time in the schedule that will not be disruptive to business.  By Ali Withers.