Blue hair: It’s the cool new look for food safety
Ever found a hair in your takeaway? Now you’ll know where it came from
A health and safety services company has come up with what is clearly the best idea ever for making it easier for customers to spot a kitchen worker’s hair in their food.
The online health and safety company Protecting.co.uk says that by having all staff dye their hair blue, the problem of unwanted hair in takeaway and restaurant meals will be wiped out at a stroke.
While the move may not be universally popular within the food industry, Protecting.co.uk says it’s the easiest way forward to stamp out both kitchen nightmares and those pesky compensation claims from disgruntled customers.
“No longer will your evening at Le Restaurant de Posh be wrecked by a cry of ‘Waiter! There’s a hair in my soup!'” says Protecting.co.uk’s follically-challenged boss Mark Hall, “because stringent steps have been taken in the kitchen.”
‘Hairy burger ruined my night out’
Protecting.co.uk surveyed 1,552 people, and a staggering 91% said they had found an unwanted hair in their food from a takeaway or a restaurant at some time in their lives.
• Some 89% supported our idea for kitchen workers to dye their hair blue
• An overwhelming 99% supported tight regulations over hair in the kitchen
As one person told us: “I once got a stranger’s hair in my mouth while eating at a well-known local restaurant, I went to the bathroom and was sick. The management just shrugged it off, I won’t be going back there.”
Another told us: “My egg foo yung looked like it had been made in a barbershop. I didn’t think complaining was enough – I went straight to the council.”
Finally, this tale of woe: “A night out, a few pints, and a hair-burger on the way home. Totally wrecked my night, if I’m going to be perfectly honest.”
‘I don’t want blue hair. I’m ginger and proud’
You’d think that workers in the foodservice industry might consider this the stupidest idea since they changed the Coca-Cola recipe. And you’d be absolutely correct.
We spoke to 250 kitchen workers and the results were – predictably – damning, both arguing for and against blue hair.
• Just 5% were in favour of dyeing hair blue
• But 83% said they do not currently wear a hair new net of any description
• While 67% admit to taking hairs out of food
• And 2% admit to losing a plaster or rubber band while preparing food
One kitchen worker confessed: “I once chopped up a bunch of spring onions and realised 3 hours later I had also chopped up the rubber band holding them together. Nobody noticed though”
While another defended her right not to dye her hair, based around some sort of concept called ‘fashion’: “I’m a red-head and proud, and there’s no way you’re going to make me go blue.”
And obviously, Bald Steve tells us: “I have no hair, all for it”.
Despite the push back, Protecting’s Mark Hall still thinks the idea is a goer:
“But it’s daft, unpopular ideas that end up being the most effective,” he says. “Look at blue plasters – everybody thought that was the nanny state gone mad. Now they’re in every kitchen.”
But let’s leave this in the hands of Valerie of Liverpool, who gets the final say on whether or not kitchen staff should head to their local hairdresser for a state-sanctioned blue rinse:
“I’m on the lookout for a man who can cook, this would help me identify him.”