The Old West: Saloons - gunfights - gambling and the Great Frontier -

This era was as much legend as it was truth and while Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp get all the attention, when the truth be told, the cattlemen of the Old West truly held all the power.

Cattle signified wealth and power. The more cattle one had, the more influence he could exert in land battles and town politics. So protecting them was the highest priority. The best way to do this was to brand them with a distinctive mark.

Each brand, of course, had to be different from all the others and many times conveyed the character of the owner. But no matter which letter or symbols made up your distinctive brand, one thing was guaranteed... your brand protected your livestock.

In today's world, branding has moved from the open range of the Old West to the corporate board room. The strength of a brand is critical to business success, especially in the restaurant business. Millions of dollars are spent every year by restaurants ensuring their brand is positioned correctly in the minds of consumers. From a fun atmosphere where friends meet and eat together to a value menu built on convenience and just a few dollar bills, brands can communicate many things.

But unlike a brand on the left hind quarters of a cow, your brand is not quite as permanent. One foodborne illness outbreak or a few too many critical violations from your local health department can ruin your brand overnight.

Protecting your brand from such a disaster starts with a comprehensive food safety program of which food rotation is a critical part. To effectively implement a food rotation program, you must do two things: understand the why and figure out the how.

Understanding the Why

Understanding why a food rotation system should be an integral part of any food safety program all starts with the guidelines released in the 2005 FDA Food Code.

These guidelines use a combination of time and temperature to control dangerous bacteria and the best way to track the time component of this equation is through a simple, easy-to-understand food rotation system.

Compliance with these guidelines is still a major issue in the foodservice industry, so it makes sense to review the items that should be labeled with use-by dates.

• Foods prepared in a food establishment must be clearly marked with the date of preparation and use-by date
• Commercially processed food must be labeled to indicate when the original package was opened and its use-by date
• Foods and ingredients removed from their original containers must by labeled for identification

Beyond complying with the FDA Food Code, there are several other benefits to creating a food rotation system. Food waste can be significantly reduced simply by ensuring food is rotated properly. This can be done by simply following the FIFO (first in, first out) principle. FIFO states that the foods that are received or prepared first should be used first.

For this to be successful, the use-by dates should be clearly marked. This reduces the chance of a product exceeding its recommended shelf life and helps ensure the freshest products will be served to customers.

A food rotation system can also make your operation more efficient. By clearly marking foods with color-coded, day-of-the-week labels, employees can quickly and easily identify what is in a container and if it needs to be used or discarded. The additional time spent searching for food and figuring out if it is good enough to serve may seem insignificant but believe it or not, it adds up quickly.

The most important reason for understanding why a food rotation system is critical is to help prevent a foodborne illness outbreak. Bacteria can grow to dangerous levels in food of almost any kind and if time is not properly tracked, it will lead to outbreaks ranging from a few unhappy customers forced to stay up all night with rather unruly symptoms to the other extreme, death.

Figuring Out the How

Realizing why food rotation is so important is one thing but figuring out how to implement a system that works is another thing altogether. Fortunately, it is not too difficult, and it is easy to train your employees to do things right. In fact, figuring out the how comes down to four simple choices.

Step 1: Choose the Right Adhesive

The first step is to choose the right label adhesive. Determine the best adhesive for your applications by considering the environments your labels will be subjected to, the surfaces they will adhere to and your removability requirements. Answering these questions will help you with your decision between which of the four main adhesives to use.

Dissolvable labels disappear completely within seconds in water of any temperature. They save on clean up time and eliminate adhesive build up and residue.

DuraLabels are innovative, plastic labels that are both removable and waterproof. The unique properties of these labels allow them to be removed, even after washing, leaving no sticky residue.

SupeRemovable labels are ideal for many label situations and as their name states are very easy to remove. The labels can be used on metal, glass or plastic and are easy to write on. Because these are paper labels, they must be removed before washing or they will leave adhesive residue.

Cold Temp labels feature an adhesive that is specially formulated for the cold, and often damp environments of freezers. When applied to a dry surface, these labels can withstand temperature down to -65F. Because of the aggressive nature of these labels, they should be considered permanent and should be used on packaging that will be thrown away.

Besides choosing the right type of adhesive, it is very important that you choose the right label supplier. There are many companies that make labels. Make sure you find one that makes labels specifically for the foodservice environment and that all labels are safe for incidental food contact. Using any label won't work and you need to find a reputable company such as Daydots whose primary purpose is food safety.

Step 2: Choose the Right Type of Label

Labels come in all shapes and sizes to fit your unique food rotation needs. Daydots original, color-coded, day-of-the-week labels have revolutionized the industry and are a must for any food rotation program.

From triangular shapes to rectangles to three-inch circles, find the shape and size that works best for your kitchen.

Then evaluate what information you want to record on the label. Besides the discard time, do you need to identify the item, who prepped it, and the time it was prepared?

Or would a simple "use-first" or "use by" label work?

Step 3: Choose the Right Training Method

Once you choose the adhesive and type of label that works best for your kitchen, figure out the best way to train your employees. Don't expect them to understand this unless you create a simple way to explain the importance of food rotation.

One common method is to create a food rotation poster complete with the shelf life of each food item in your kitchen. The corresponding label that would need to be applied based on the day it is prepped is displayed prominently on the poster as well. This chart is easily understood by employees and easy to follow during the prepping process.

While a poster of this kind is foundational to any food rotation program, be creative in your training. From online training to regular quizzes on proper rotation techniques, restaurants can do many different things to ensure their employees understand the why and the how of food rotation.

Step 4: Choose the Right Measurement Tool

As the saying goes, you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Be sure you find a way to measure the effectiveness of your food rotation program. You can doing this by tracking food waste, recording the trend of critical violations issued by your health department or your third-party auditor or by even tracking your label usage.

No matter what the method, make sure you can easily track it and that it is a repeatable process for you and your management staff.

By understanding the why behind food rotation and figuring out the how, you can go a long way in protecting your brand. And what better time to start than now? As the famous American cowboy, John Wayne, once said "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life.

Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." So now your brand is in your hands and you have the opportunity to do something with it. So in the words of many of the Old West legends, let's "git‘ er done!"

Daydots, a division of Ecolab, is the leading manufacturer/distributor of food safety products to the foodservice industry.  For more information about Daydots, please visit www.daydots.com