Be Cool, Chill Out, Refrigerate Promptly!
The Cold Chain — Keeping perishable foods at proper cold holding temperatures (between 28°F and 41°F maximum or 0°F for frozen food) from your food producers / manufacturers to your customers has to be one of our strongest links to safe food and high quality. Sometimes that is referred to in the food industry as “maintaining the COLD CHAIN”. Any slip ups in the cold chain, and we have a weak link. Most all of our state food regulations require 41°F as a cold maximum, but colder is a “best practice” policy to maintain.
The Flow of the Food—In food service we refer to the stages that food travels through on its precarious route to our customers, as the flow of the food. Our “be cool” theme above must be in action. Those cold stages requiring refrigeration or control of the cold food temperature typically are:
1. Receiving cold perishable or frozen foods
2. Cold storage and thawing of potentially hazardous and perishable food
3. Maintaining the cold temp. during preparation
4. Cold holding after food preparation
5. Rapid cooling if a leftover cooked food (within 4-6 hours maximum)
6. Cold foods served to the customer
The Stem Thermometer or Thermocouple is the critical tool for checking our food temperatures, particularly upon receiving foods from your suppliers. If that weak link happens at supplier transportation level, reject the food shipment. The thermometer must be used throughout the work day and maintain daily temperature charts. As for your temperature readings, the colder, the better! Especially for fish, meats, and poultry. The colder your refrigeration equipment can keep chilled foods without freezing them, the longer the shelf life of the food. Storing cold food at an internal temperature of 35°F instead of 41°F might double the shelf life of some foods.
Cold Capacity –Refrigeration units, refrigerated prep tables, deli cases, and walk-in coolers all differ in their capacity to keep foods cool and recover after being open. That’s especially true in a hot kitchen. In all instances, the air inside the refrigerated compartment must be a few degrees colder than 41°F to assure that cold food internal temperatures are held at 41°F or below. For example, if you want your food to cold hold at 35°F, you refrigeration unit has to run an air temperature of 31°F to 32 °F. Storage sections near the cooler compartment door are always warmer.
Take Cold Storage Temperatures & Save Money —Dairy, fresh seafood, poultry, meat and deli type meat suppliers recommend 28-35°F internal temperature for optimum freshness and shelf life. FDA recommends 41°F for most fruits and vegetables (other than whole tomatoes that are ripening, bananas, raw potatoes, etc. that can be room temperature).
Pre-chilling Cut Fruits, Vegetables, & Salad Ingredients — Cut tomatoes and cut greens have been the cause of many outbreaks, so the FDA Food Code requires that once they are cut, they must be held cold at 41°F or below. It’s always a good idea to pre-chill any ingredients for salads before mixing them (examples: chicken or tuna salad, salsa ingredients, etc.).
Use that thermometer several times a day and record temperatures. Teach the food service crew what it really means to “be cool, chill out, and refrigerate promptly”.
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About the Author: Lacie Thrall
Lacie Thrall passed away in early 2017 after a long illness. She dedicated her 35-year career to improving the health and well-being of others by promoting food safety best practices. Lacie worked in environmental health for 17 years before joining FoodHandler in 1997 as the Director of Safety Management. While at FoodHandler, she trained employees and customers on safe food handling practices, including proper hand hygiene and glove use. Later as a FoodHandler consultant, Lacie provided the foodservice industry with food safety information and advice through her blog on FoodHandler.com.
Handling Leafy Green Salad
We have had several produce outbreaks of foodborne disease from our lettuce, spinach, and other greens in the last several years that have been devastating to the produce growers and distributors, retail grocery stores, restaurants, and consumers.
Food Packaging Safety in a Vacuum
Extending the shelf life of fresh foods has come a long way in the food industry since curing meats with salt and sugar or canning vegetables with heat processing. The food service and consumer markets needed some better visual packages to draw the eye to the freshness factor and the technology of food packaging has filled our dinner plate. Vacuum packaging and modified atmosphere packaging, shortened to “MAP”, are the terms used for the method of food packaging used every time we choose convenience over more complex scratch meal preparation. According to industry statistics, billions of packages of vacuum and MAP-packaged foods flood the marketplace today. In both modified-atmosphere and vacuum packaging, food is packaged in a pouch made of barrier film.
The Eleven Commandments of Food Safety at Your Restaurant
Lists help us remember all kinds of information. Given the list of recent national foodborne outbreaks in the news, keep repeating this list to your food service team. They are kind of like “commandments”. As a professional in a food service facility we should think of the very basic food safety concepts that every crew member should aspire to learn, even though this list may have different priorities based on your menu. The first 3 apply to anyone who serves food, from a bag of popcorn to a full course meal. As chefs or managers, if we can “set the example” by repeating good food safety practices visibly to the crew, it will help them understand how important it is to the success of your facility. Thou shalt:
The Worst Customer Complaint: Foodborne Illness
Food service managers and crew try to follow the rules of food protection. Yet, occasionally a complaint may arise and these calls take priority over all other daily crises. If you have been in the food service industry long enough, you may have gotten one of these. A customer may claim, "I think your food made me ill." These words inflict instant anxiety. If it happens, here are some next steps to think about in advance of such a claim:
