By putting the right food safety systems and precautions in place, you’ll stop yourself and your staff from worrying every time your local health inspector walks in. Let’s look at a some of the basics and keep in mind that all of this is for informational purposes only – check with YOUR local health department and the USDA to stay up to date on current rules.
Time and Temperature
Keeping your food at a safe temperature for an allotted amount of time is one of the simplest and effective ways to stop food-borne illnesses and keep health inspectors happy. They want to see that you are following industry standards.
Food becomes dangerous when the temperature falls to a point where bacterial growth can start. This refers to food temperatures between 40° F and 140° F. The longer food sits in this range, the higher the risk that it’ll become unsafe.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends never leaving cold foods out of refrigeration for more than two hours. In general, hot foods shouldn’t be left at room temperature for more than an hour. After that, the food should be thrown out. Hot food stays hot and cold food stays cold is the general rule of thumb!
Some general rules of thumb below:
- Keep hot food hot at or above 140° F by keeping cooked food in chafing dishes, preheated steam tables, warming trays, or slow cookers.
- Keep cold food cold at or below 40° F by placing food in containers on ice.
- Keep temperature logs. Check thermometers two or three times per day to make sure food products are stored at the right temperatures.
- When cooling cooked food and storing for leftovers, cool quickly using shallow containers and refrigerate at 40° F or below within two hours.
- When reheating food, make sure it’s reheated thoroughly. As a precaution, check the food’s internal temperature before consumption.
Storage
Cross-contamination is a big reason people have problems. Poor inventory storage can cause that. Juices dripping from one item to another is a big no no.
For example: Chicken must be cooked to a minimum of 165° – if those juices drip into beef that is then cooked to 145° , you could run the risk of the chicken bacteria not being killed by temperature. Below is a good general guideline on the order of storage.
- Raw Vegetables
- Cooked Vegetables
- Cooked Meats
- Cooked Seafood
- Raw Seafood
- Raw Beef
- Raw Pork
- Raw Chicken
Cross-Contamination
Mishandling food items can be just as bad as storing items incorrectly. Making sure that washing takes place in between handling food items is important. If someone handles raw chicken and then touches a bun, there is a good chance that the chicken bacteria has now transferred to the bun.
Cooks and back of the house staff should be trained on tactics to avoid cross-contamination, such as switching out cutting boards, washing hands when going from handling meat to handling vegetables, and so on.
Make sure your cooks and other kitchen workers are ServSafe-certified. ServSafe is the industry standard for training restaurant employees to handle food safely. Learn more about ServSafe and its certifications here.
Be sure to train your team to use color-coded, food-specific cutting boards and the proper utensils for each station and product.
There you go – three ways to keep your guests, your food and your staff safe from food borne illnesses. Hopefully your health inspector loves it!