What's a Keep It Clean Clinic?

It's an interactive food safety education event you can hold to teach people involved in food preparation how to "Keep It Clean." It's a great way to raise awareness. If you're interested in sponsoring a Keep It Clean Clinic in your community, contact the International Food Safety Council at 800/456-0111 or take a look at the ideas below.

Find a partner
Call 800/456-0111 for a list of local groups who may want to cosponsor a Keep It Clean Clinic with you. Ideas :state restaurant associations, health departments, state Beef and Pork Councils and Egg Boards, International Food Safety Council sponsors, and local colleges.

Pick a day, time and location.
Schedule a clinic for anywhere from an hour to a day. Be creative: Invite restaurant, foodservice and supermarket staff to the first half, then open the second half to the public.

Try for a high-traffic time and place. Weekdays at lunchtime are good, because people can get away from work and it's easy for the media to cover it for the evening news or next day's paper. For more impact, consider conducting several clinics at one timeat different places, or spreading them out over a few days.

Find a location with built-in traffic: a restaurant, supermarket, shopping center, school cafeteria, or library. Or tie it to an already-scheduled community health fare or festival. You could even take it on the road. Decorate a van with National Food Safety Education Month signs and create a mobile classroom to tour your community.

Choose your audience
Decide whether to limit your Keep It Clean clinic to food-handlers (restaurant, foodservice and supermarket staff) or to go for a broader audience: restaurant customers, the general public, volunteers who handle food at food pantries, homeless shelters, church suppers, etc. Then distribute flyers, posters and buttons in your community advertising your clinic.

Line up hosts
Ask a food safety expert and a local media celebrity to co-host your Keep It Clean Clinic.

IDEAS: local restaurateurs, well-known chefs, college culinary instructors, ServSafe® instructors, health department officials, TV personalities, radio DJs, newspaper health or food editors. Find a celebrity who's an amateur chef!

Keep it fast-paced and engage your audience.

Demonstrations
Hands-on demos are a great way to show: the proper techniques for hand-washing; how to clean surfaces and utensils to eliminate cross-contamination; the difference between cleaning and sanitizing; and how to properly dispose of waste. Check out our training sessions for ideas.

IDEA: Have a local chef prepare a recipe and show the proper techniques for keeping it clean.

Competitions and Games
Get your audience to compete. Bring in food safety experts as judges. Give out prizes you've rounded up from local vendors—cleaning products, restaurant coupons, cookware, etc.

HAND-WASHING: Use a product like Glow-Germ (which shows bacteria on hands) to judge whether participants wash their hands properly. MOPPING: Divide the floor into sections for a "mop-off." FOOD SAFETY SHOWDOWN: Use the Jeopardy-like game show format available as part of the ServSafe® training program (call us at 800/765-2122 for info). Or make up your own game show about Keeping It Clean. LEARNING EXERCISES. Choose one of our word games (quizzes, crossword puzzles, word jumble, and more).

Alert the media
Use the sample media alert and press release to reach the press—especially food and health editors and reporters.

Follow up
After your clinic, send out a news release with details: who hosted your clinic, how many people came. Include photos taken at the event. Feature stories and photos in your in-house newsletter.