Why Canning in Foodservice Really Isn’t a Good Way to Preserve Fresh Produce

Canning has long been a trusted method for preserving fresh produce, offering a way to extend shelf life and minimize waste. I grew up canning garden produce at home with my family and to do this day, I still can salsas, meat broths, pickles, and other tomato products for home use. In fact, it is a hobby of mine that I enjoy undertaking – much to the chagrin of my wife who simply tolerates my obsession to find new, interesting, and safe canning recipes.

 

Canning has had a resurgence of sorts in the past few years. Thousands of videos online address the topic and fueled by the supply chain disruptions and rising food prices we’ve seen since the pandemic in 2020, canning has become a popular activity once again. Home canning is a great activity – it allows individuals to preserve the produce they grow or buy locally, reduces dependence on store-bought goods, gives you greater control over your food supply and what goes into it, and fosters a sense of independence and preparedness.

 

That said, home canning should stay just that way – in the home. In a foodservice environment, we’ve seen increased interest in this among chefs and managers as they look to make use of farm-to-table or farm-to-school programs. While it may be ideal for home operations, canning fresh produce in a foodservice setting is often impractical and can lead to inefficiencies and safety risks.

 

Canning is very labor-intensive, requiring multiple steps. Once you have the produce in the operation, you must wash it, process it, sterilize your jars, prepare the product, fill the jars, and then finally process. Then, once you finish processing you realize that some of your jars didn’t seal, and all that work was for naught! In a foodservice environment where efficiency is paramount, dedicating staff hours to such a tedious process can disrupt operations. Instead of focusing on food preparation and service, staff would be tied up with canning, reducing overall productivity and profitability.

 

Most importantly, canning carries inherent food safety risks. Improper canning can lead to botulism, a serious and potentially fatal illness caused by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Even a small amount of botulinum toxin can make someone ill because the toxin is so potent. Ensuring safe canning practices requires rigorous adherence to tested methods, proper acidity levels, and precise processing times. There’s little room for error, and the stakes are too high if safety protocols are compromised.

 

From a regulatory standpoint, home canned foods are not allowed in school meal programs per USDA FNS guidelines. If you are another retail foodservice operation, you can only partake in this type of food preservation methods with the approval of your regulatory authority. At the very least, the FDA model food code would require that you have a fully functional HACCP plan in place to receive a variance to engage in this method of food preservation.

 

In closing, I am a big proponent of home canned food and encourage everyone to try it at least once…at home being the key phrase. But it is a different story in a foodservice operation where you are serving hundreds, if not thousands of guests daily. Hopefully, this discussion will quell your desire to implement canning in your foodservice operation. While canning may seem like a great marketing ploy and a way to preserve fresh produce, it is far from ideal in the foodservice industry. The time, labor, and safety risks associated with canning far outweigh its benefits for a commercial operation. Risk Nothing.

 

Call out: Most importantly, canning carries inherent food safety risks…there’s little room for error, and the stakes are too high if safety protocols are compromised.

Sanitation, Sanitation, Where Art Thou?

Continuing the theme I picked up on a few months ago, discussing common causes of foodborne illness, I’d like to focus this blog on cross contamination, more precisely sanitation. Sanitation is another issue that employees don’t often do at home, so they discount the importance of it in the food production environment. That is to say that they have never made someone sick at home because they only clean their countertops and they have likely never sanitized their kitchen, so why is it so important in a foodservice facility?

Is Implementing a Color-Coded Food Safety Plan Right for your Operation?

Foodborne pathogens are by far the most prevalent cause of foodborne illness in the United States and across the world.  There are 31 known agents that cause foodborne illnesses, and more that are unspecified or yet undiscovered – remember, E. Coli 0157:H7 wasn’t identified until the early-1980s. It is estimated each year, 48 million illnesses occur because of these known and unknown pathogens, resulting in over 3,000 deaths.

Maintaining your Equipment: Is it the Missing Ingredient in your Recipe for Food Safety?

Although I am no longer in day-to-day operations, between our students and foodservice lab at the university and my volunteer activities in my local church, I keep a close hand in food production. This past week, I had the opportunity to lead a group of men at our church in preparation of a luncheon for 100 women who were attending a spirituality retreat.  Over the course of the morning, I realized our main cooler in the kitchen was not functioning properly and was about 10˚F above the required temperature.  While we do have a commercial kitchen, we do not routinely log temperatures, so when the unit started to malfunction is questionable.  Even more concerning was not the lunch we were preparing for, but the dinner that was served the night before for 300+ families in the parish.