Restaurant Food Safety Program: Brewed Iced Teas

Food Safety Awareness: A look at iced teas

Tracking the shelf life of your iced teas

In honor of National Food Safety Month this September, Plascon is looking to keep your freshly brewed iced tea beverages safe and free from harmful bacteria.  Second only to water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world.  In 2017, Americans consumed more than 3.8 billion gallons of tea, with approximately 80% of that tea being iced tea. (Source: Tea Association of the USA)  

Most restaurants know exactly when that fresh batch of iced tea was brewed. In most instances, that fresh brewed tea was done at the time the restaurant opened, and it has been sitting there since then. It is vitally important for restaurants to track and know exactly how old their tea is. After about 2 hours of sitting inside the urns, mold and bacteria can begin to grow on the walls of the urns and the spigots. The only way to truly know the age of your tea, is to record that data somewhere with the exact date and time of that particular brew. This way, you know when a batch has been sitting for hours, and it is best to empty the contents of that tea and do a fresh new batch. In many instances, the person who brewed that batch is long gone before the contents have been emptied.

But, how do you record this? Saftea® Liner makes it simple! 

Each Saftea® Liner has an integrated writable white panel form which you can record the date, time, and who did the brew. This way there is never any question as to how old the tea is inside that urn. Saftea® Liner is also the only tea urn liner available with these panels to record your data, to make tracking this information easy and seamless.  Without this writable panel, what would be your process to ensure accurate accounting of this is observed by all employees?

No matter how you do it, keeping track of who brewed the tea, and most importantly, when it was brewed is vital to any food service program that is interested in food safety. For the safest tea, use Saftea®.

For a limited time you can try Saftea® Liner free!  Request your 7-day free trial and see the benefits of using Saftea® Liner as part of your daily food and beverage safety program.