One of the most hardworking appliances in your kitchen is your kitchen hood. Every time you cook in your kitchen, whether it’s on the stove, oven, or grill, your kitchen hood is making sure that the smoke and fumes coming off from the cooking appliances are being removed from your kitchen. This means that an efficient kitchen hood is imperative to having a clean, sanitary, and safe kitchen for your employees.
Given the huge importance of your kitchen hood, it is critical that you have a regular cleaning and maintenance schedule for your hood. Depending on how busy your kitchen is and what kind of food you produce, your cleaning schedule can be month, quarterly, or annually.
Here are five reasons why you should clean your kitchen hood regularly.
1. Removing All Blockage and Bacteria Inside
If you’ve ever dared to peek into your kitchen hood after it has gone a few months without being cleaned, you probably would have been shocked at what you saw: greasy deposits of grime and dirt, as well as smoke residue.
Not only does the residue prevent the kitchen hood from working properly, it can also be a breeding ground for harmful microorganisms such as bacteria and mold. These bacteria and mold can pose a health hazard for your workers and even your customers.
2. Preventing Pest Infestations
Do you know what else is drawn to grease buildup other than microorganisms? Insect pests! Flies, ants, and cockroaches love to munch on food particles and grease, so the buildup in your kitchen hood will be a veritable feast for them. From there, it will only be a matter of time before you’ve got insect pests crawling all over your floors and kitchen appliances.
What’s the one thing that insects do better than eat? It’s to make more insects. Once you’ve got cockroaches and ants inside your kitchen, they will breed rapidly and cause an infestation that you’ll need to spend more money to fix.
3. Complying with State Regulations
In the US, there are state laws that govern kitchen safety. These laws also cover kitchen hood cleaning, and you need to comply with the law to ensure that you are permitted to continue operating your business.
In Utah, for example, businesses that cook food are required to clean their kitchen hood at least once every six months.
4. Ensuring Safe, Healthy, and Sanitary Conditions
A dirty and blocked up kitchen hood is not only a health hazard because of the pests it attracts and the bacteria that can be growing inside, it can also be a fire hazard! If you have thick grease buildup inside your kitchen hood, an errant spark can be enough to start a kitchen fire. Anyone who knows in a kitchen knows how dangerous grease fires can be!
5. Protecting Your Livelihood
Every commercial kitchen needs to be visited by an inspector and certified that the kitchen is providing a safe and healthy working environment. If you have a blocked and dirty kitchen hood, insect pests running around, and unsanitary conditions where the food is being made, you will not be certified, and you might even be fined. If the conditions are severe enough, you might even be forced to shut down and you will lose your business.
As a responsible business owner, it is your duty to provide your kitchen staff with safe equipment and a quality working environment. Thus, you should invest in getting topnotch cleaning services for your kitchen hood.
