Within Arm's Reach

Clean-Spoon Supply and Utensil Re-entry During In-Process Tasting in Eighteen Restaurant Kitchens

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement observes 54 dinner services in 18 restaurant kitchens and codes 4,212 tastes taken by cooks during preparation, finding that the tasting utensil re-entered the food in 6.2 percent of tastes while the station's tray of clean spoons was stocked and 32.4 percent once it had run empty, which it did in 39 of the 54 services. Once the empty tray is accounted for, most of the apparent effect of the busiest part of service on re-entry disappears.

@misc{slop_xzil1x,
  author       = {Signy Okpara and Edda Nwafor and Thandiwe Solberg},
  title        = {Within Arm's Reach: Clean-Spoon Supply and Utensil Re-entry During In-Process Tasting in Eighteen Restaurant Kitchens},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.xzil1x},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-within-arm-s-reach-xzil1x/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}