For restaurants, prioritizing the safety of both customers and staff is crucial. While attention is typically directed toward foodborne illnesses and kitchen hazards, chemical exposure represents a significant yet often overlooked risk.
The Forgotten Threat in Your Beer Lines
There is a hidden hazard most restaurant owners and operators have rarely considered: extremely dangerous and caustic beer line cleaners. In fact, the level of causticity of these cleaners and the damage they can cause is one of the industry's best-kept secrets.
Negligently leaving beer line cleaners in draft lines has sickened customers and has even resulted in multi-million dollar lawsuits, creating an avoidable nightmare for the restaurants involved.
In this article, we'll discuss the dangers of caustic beer line cleaners, strategies to prevent accidents associated with them and how to safeguard the well-being of your workers and patrons.
Quality is More Than a Great Taste
The quality of the beer being served is essential to both the proprietors who sell it and the customers who drink it. Serving poorly tasting beer might be something a restaurant can bounce back from, but serving beer contaminated with caustic beer line cleaner poses a genuine threat.
Most beer line cleaners contain potent chemicals like sodium hydroxide and phosphoric acid, meticulously formulated to eradicate organic residue and microbial growth from beer lines. While these chemicals are indispensable for maintaining hygiene and preserving beer quality, their lingering presence can spell disaster if not thoroughly flushed from the system after use.
Flushing the beer lines after cleaning may seem like a trivial task, but the consequences of forgetting to do so can be dire. As a restaurant owner/operator, it’s critical that you understand the composition and purpose of beer line cleaners so you can better avoid the severe risks associated with them.
An unsuspecting customer swallowing a mouthful of beer line cleaner will likely lead to their acute poisoning, nausea, dizziness, and even organ damage. This may sound like a severe scenario but take a look at how easily this can happen.
Picture This
In a bustling pub, a bartender hastily prepares for the evening rush, neglecting to flush out the beer lines adequately after a rigorous cleaning session. As patrons eagerly awaited their favorite brews, disaster strikes. Traces of caustic cleaner taints the beer, causing severe gastrointestinal distress among unsuspecting customers. Hospitalizations ensue, casting a shadow over the establishment's reputation and igniting legal repercussions.
The inevitable locally viral social media story about the incident would certainly spell trouble for the restaurant serving the beer, regardless of who is at fault.
Awareness is Key
The chemical industry is aware of cases throughout the years where patrons have been served draft beer containing beer line cleaner. But in the hospitality industry, talk of it is kept on the 'down low.'
These cleaners ambush beer drinkers when they least expect it, often sending them to a hospital. In most cases, the restaurant that served the poisonous beer line cleaner is financially ambushed as well.
Sure, there are preventive measures and safety protocols in place for caustic beer line cleaners. However, in today's extremely fast-paced world, we believe there is too much room for human error for the average restaurant owner/operator to be comfortable.
There is a Solution
Vantage Duo, a revolutionary non-caustic beer line cleaner designed by National Chemicals, Inc., was created to prioritize the protection of your business, patrons and staff, ensuring taste satisfaction and physical safety for all.
With Vantage Duo, you can maintain impeccable hygiene standards without compromise. By eliminating the risk of chemical exposure associated with traditional cleaners, your restaurant is safe from the complicated repercussions caused by simple human error.
As a restaurant professional, you are responsible for prioritizing safety by providing adequate training, resources, and equipment. But it goes beyond following regulatory requirements. In your quest for a safer, more enjoyable experience, using Vantage Duo prevents disastrous consequences for your customers and your business, such as financial losses and lawsuits.
Why Risk It?
Your employees and your customers depend on you to make safe, healthy choices about the chemicals you bring into your establishment. Choosing Vantage Duo over a caustic cleaner shows you prioritize a healthy environment where delicious food, safe drinks, and peace of mind are always on the menu. After all, a commitment to safety is an investment in your restaurant's success. Don't lose what you worked so hard to build because of a simple human error.
Stop using caustic chemicals to clean your beer lines and make the switch to Vantage Duo. Because when it comes to prioritizing the health and safety of others and reducing the threat to your business, there's no room for mistakes.
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