Preventing Foodborne Illnesses with OZONE Sanitation for the Kitchen

A clean kitchen is essential for keeping our food clean and our family healthy. According to the Center for Disease Control, viruses, bacteria, parasites, toxins, metals, and prions cause more than 200 known diseases that are transmitted through food. We cook, eat, chat, and hang around the kitchen every day, so kitchen hygiene is the single most important factor in preventing foodborne illnesses. And with the threat of COVID-19, a safe and reliable sanitation system is even more important in preventing our loved ones and ourselves from getting sick. So shouldn’t sanitizing our home kitchens be a priority? 

Those looking for a sanitation solution for their home kitchen might look to chemicals such as chlorine. However, there’s a better option that works more efficiently and without the chemical residue that chlorine leaves. OZONE water is a sanitation technology that has been used to disinfect water for over a hundred years. It has been used predominantly in Europe and Asia, and thanks to developments in electrolytic OZONE generation technology, it’s gaining greater appeal in the US and East Asia as a perfect sanitizing solution for home and central kitchens.

How Can We Ensure Our Safety? 

Kate, a high-end California restaurant owner, found herself in hot water after the biofilm was found in a water line, contaminating the drinking water. Despite rigid hygiene measures and extensive staff training, her restaurant still received complaints from customers who came down with food poisoning. 

It’s caused her to lose money by refunds and compensation, and the bad online reviews are permanent. In salvaging her restaurant, she looked into several sanitation methods for a cost-effective sanitation process that can ensure the drinking water is safe to serve.

Chemical-free Sanitation Methods

There are several sanitation processes for restaurants and central kitchens. Each can achieve different levels of disinfection. OZONE and UV Irradiation are two widely used disinfection methods with applications in food and beverage, healthcare, water line disinfection, and other industries. Both methods are chemical-free. 

What is OZONE Sanitation?

OZONE is a highly reactive oxidizer that oxidizes almost everything from inorganic compounds to bacteria. OZONE is used to diminish infection and viruses and bacteria. Due to its highly reactive properties, OZONE reverts back to oxygen immediately after disinfection, leaving it safe and with no residual or other compounds. When OZONE is used to disinfect water, it doesn’t create a bad “aftertaste” as chlorine does. On the contrary, it is widely used specifically for its odor removal properties.

OZONE water has come on top as a more effective sanitation method compared to UV irradiation. A study from the National Key Research and Development Program of China showed that the toxin degradation rate of OZONE was higher than UV irradiation by more than 11 percent. This is because, during OZONE, inorganic and organic compounds are both oxidized. This means that OZONE can reduce the toxicity of pesticides to produce better than UV irradiation.

Electrolytic OZONE is one of the best ways to create OZONE because it generates OZONE with less energy. This is a method whereby tap water is charged with electricity to infuse it with OZONE at up to 28% ppm, a high enough concentration to make it lethal against bacteria and viruses, but safe for humans to use. Using this cutting-edge technology, electrolytic OZONE can be affordable, stable, and easy to manage. The newest OZONE creation technologies produce high-purity reactive OZONE without polluting the environment with the by-product of nitrogen oxide. 

Ultra Violet (UV) light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. There are three types of UV light. UV-A and UV-B are the types of radiation that pass through the atmosphere and hit up our beaches, which give some of us a lovely tan while giving others a painful sunburn. Luckily, the atmosphere absorbs most of the third type – UV-C, the highest-energy and most dangerous of the three. Employing UV irradiation is a well-known sanitation method. It kills germs by hitting them with the most energetic type of UV light, UV-C.

OZONE water vs UV Light Sanitation



The Best Chemical-Free Sanitation Method

Weighing up all the pros and cons, it is clear that OZONE is a more effective disinfection option than UV irradiation, thanks to its permeability, efficacy, and practicality. UV irradiation is highly effective under the right conditions, but OZONE water has a high reactivity that results in speedy sanitation without producing any byproducts. Meanwhile, UV irradiation requires microbes to be exposed to intense light for an extended period of time.

BiOLUX manufactures a compact, easy-to-use, and effective OZONE disinfection system. This system uses patented electrolytic OZONE to provide instant and residual-free sanitation.