Nitty Gritty

Ever wondered why you get sugar in sachets and not a sugar bowl in restaurants and cafes these days? And why there are portion-controlled individually wrapped things like biscuits, marmalade and chocolates?

The purpose of them is to reduce infection spreading of course, but they are backed up by legislation, and this is why they've been introduced.

I was working at the Beachcomber Resort when this legislation came in and we had to get rid of the sugar in our sugar bowls and replace them with sachets. Also the coffee jars had to be rid of, and individual servings of coffee went out instead. It is somewhat wasteful, and my claim is that despite it saying clearly "one teasoonful" on the sugar sachets, there is most definitely NOT one teaspoon. So determined I was to prove this that I was opening sugar sachets into a teaspoon and there was proof positive that the "teaspoonful" contained therein was nowhere near the full sized Australian standard cup-and-spoon measurement of precisely five millilitres.

So I always take three sachets of sugar in my coffee. If I was using a teaspoon itself, I'd only use two.

The reason for all this tedium is, however, is the Australian Food Safety Standards. These are quite involved specifications that describe how food is to be stored, handled and cared for. The relevant part is this:

8 Food display
...

(2) A food business must, when displaying unpackaged ready-to-eat food for self service:
(a) ensure the display of the food is effectively supervised so that any food that is contaminated by a customer or is likely to have been so contaminated is removed from display without delay;
(b) provide separate serving utensils for each food or other dispensing methods that minimise the likelihood of the food being contaminated; and
(c) provide protective barriers that minimise the likelihood of contamination by customers.
(3) Subclause (2) does not apply to food in tamper resistant equipment or containers.

[For a lot more info, see http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/thecode/foodsafetystandardsaustraliaonly/index.cfm ]

So if you are going to put out a sugar bowl on a table and allow people to use it, you have to supervise them, remove contaminated stuff, and ensure they use a clean spoon every time. If your wait-staff aren't watching everyone like a hawke every time they sugar their coffee, you're infringing the regulations. Alternatively, put the sugar in a sachet, and (3) comes into play.

A lot simpler that way, isn't it? And this is why we have the practice. Wasteful, tedious and bothersome, yes, but compliant with the regulations.