Cleaning and Sanitizing: Whats the Difference?
There are two steps to having a clean and sanitary kitchen. The first step is cleaning and the second step sanitizing. The cleaning process involves washing surfaces with warm, soapy water and rinsing to remove the soap and remaining food residue, grease, and dirt. Cleaning removes what you can see. Sanitizing takes place after cleaning and removes or kills the organisms you cannot see. Although the two are linked, they are separate processes. Surfaces must be cleaned for sanitizing to be effective.
Cleaning
Most surfaces that have been soiled or contaminated may be cleaned with the proper use of cleaning agents. Detergents are cleaning agents that have the ability to remove contamination and soil. They arent designed to kill bacteria, but instead act as a surfactant to lift dirt and germs off a surface so that they can be rinsed away. When detergent is combined with action, a cleaner surface is produced.
Sanitizing
The last step in the cleaning process is sanitation. In order to sanitize a surface effectively, it must be clean. If a sanitizer is applied to a soiled surface, it will not be able to penetrate the soil and inactivate the microorganisms. The soil renders the sanitizer ineffective. Therefore, it is imperative that a surface be clean before sanitizer is applied.
Chemical sanitizing generally involves either immersing the object in a sanitizing solution for a specific amount of time or spraying/wiping the object with the solution and allowing it to air-dry. Chemical sanitizers differ in their effectiveness on certain organisms and in the concentration, temperature, and contact time required to kill bacteria. Common chemical sanitizers include chlorine, iodine, and quaternary ammonium compounds or quats. Two most common chemical sanitizers seen in food service are chlorine and quats.
