Food workers are required to wear hair restraints, clean clothing that covers body hair, and gloves when handling ready-to-eat foods. Beyond these basics, the FDA Food Code and state regulations set specific rules for jewelry, fingernails, footwear, and protective equipment depending on the tasks involved.
Hair Restraints and Beard Coverings
The FDA Food Code requires food employees to wear hair restraints such as hats, hair coverings, nets, or beard restraints designed to keep hair from contacting exposed food, clean equipment, utensils, and linens. The key standard is effectiveness: whatever you wear needs to actually contain your hair, not just sit loosely on top of your head.
There is an exemption. Counter staff who only serve beverages and wrapped or packaged foods, hostesses, and wait staff don’t need hair restraints as long as they pose minimal risk of contaminating exposed food or clean surfaces. If you’re assembling a sandwich or plating a dish, you need a restraint. If you’re handing someone a bottled drink, you likely don’t.
Gloves and When to Change Them
Single-use disposable gloves are standard when handling ready-to-eat foods, meaning anything that won’t be cooked again before it’s eaten. This covers tasks like cutting raw produce, assembling sandwiches and salads, decorating baked goods, and plating or packaging finished dishes.
Wearing gloves doesn’t reduce the need to wash your hands. You should wash your hands and swap to fresh gloves each time you switch tasks, touch surfaces like drawer handles, faucet knobs, refrigerator doors, or after handling money and credit cards. Gloves with any hole, rip, or tear need to be replaced immediately. The general rule is simple: change your gloves at least as often as you’d wash your bare hands.
Fingernail Requirements
Fingernails must be trimmed, filed, and maintained so the edges and surfaces are smooth and cleanable. Rough or long nails can harbor bacteria that handwashing alone won’t remove.
Fingernail polish and artificial nails are not allowed while preparing food unless you’re wearing intact gloves in good repair. The concern is that chips of polish or pieces of artificial nails can break off and end up in food without anyone noticing.
Jewelry Restrictions
Most jewelry is prohibited during food preparation. Rings (other than a plain wedding band in many jurisdictions), bracelets, watches, and dangling earrings can all trap food particles and bacteria, and small pieces can fall into food. The specific rules vary by state and local health department, but the principle across all codes is the same: if it can’t be easily cleaned, harbor bacteria, or physically contaminate food, it shouldn’t be on your hands or wrists while you work.
Clothing That Covers Body Hair
The FDA Food Code requires clothing that covers body hair effectively enough to prevent it from reaching exposed food or clean surfaces. In practice, this means wearing a clean uniform, chef’s coat, or work shirt with sleeves rather than a tank top. Many establishments require aprons as well, which should be removed or changed when you leave the food preparation area for tasks like taking out trash or using the restroom.
Clean means genuinely clean at the start of each shift. Clothing that’s visibly soiled, stained with food, or worn from the previous day without laundering doesn’t meet the standard.
Footwear Standards
While the FDA Food Code doesn’t specify shoe requirements in detail, workplace safety standards and most employers require closed-toe shoes with non-slip soles that are secured to the foot. Flip-flops, sandals, and open-toed shoes are not acceptable in a commercial kitchen. Sturdy, low-heeled shoes protect against the most common kitchen hazards: slips on wet floors, burns from spilled hot liquids, cuts from dropped knives, and crush injuries from heavy equipment.
Protective Equipment for Hazardous Tasks
OSHA requires employers to assess the workplace for hazards and provide appropriate personal protective equipment. In food service, this can include heat-resistant gloves or mitts for handling hot pans and fryers, cut-resistant gloves when using slicers or sharp knives, eye protection when working with industrial cleaning chemicals, and waterproof aprons for dishwashing stations. The employer is responsible for identifying which tasks need additional protection and supplying the right gear.
Illness and Exclusion From Work
What you wear matters, but so does whether you should be at work at all. Food workers experiencing vomiting, diarrhea, or jaundice must be excluded from the food establishment entirely. Persistent sneezing, coughing, or a runny nose that causes discharge means you can’t work with exposed food, clean equipment, or unwrapped utensils, even if you feel well enough to be on-site.
Specific diagnosed infections carry mandatory exclusions. Workers with Salmonella, Norovirus, Hepatitis A, E. coli O157:H7, Shigella, or Listeria must stay out of the food establishment until they meet their health department’s return-to-work criteria. These aren’t suggestions. A single sick worker handling food can cause an outbreak affecting dozens or hundreds of customers, which is why reporting symptoms to a manager is a legal obligation, not a courtesy.