Food Safety News from Rogers Food Safety

We Can Come To You - Serving CT, MA

Top 4 Ways Foods Can Become Unsafe

1. Allowing Foods to be Held at Improper Temperatures

Corrective measures include:

A. Foods must be kept out of the TDZ. (40° - 140°)

B. Keep warmers at 150° or above. Check internal hot holding equipment temperatures with an oven thermometer.

C. Keep steam temperatures (coming up from the hot wells) between 150° to 160° to maintain hot foods above 140°

D. Check temperatures of all foods being held for hot or cold service, every 2 hours.

2. Allowing Employees To Practice Poor Personal Hygiene

Corrective measures include:

A. Encourage proper and frequent hand washing. Always provide warm water, soap, paper towels and a trash barrel.

B. Remind full time and student employees to promptly report illnesses to a supervisor.

C. Remind employees to cover any open sores, cuts, wounds etc.

D. Hair restraints and or hats and clean uniforms are a requirement.

E. Single use gloves are required when handling all ready to eat foods.

3. Allowing The Use of Contaminated Equipment

Corrective measures include:

A. All food contact surfaces must be washed, rinsed, sanitized and air dried between tasks.

B. Check the sanitizer concentration with a test kit often.

C. Store all cleaning clothes in green wash buckets and all wiping clothes in red sanitizer buckets.

4. Allowing Foods To Be Cooked Inadequately (Primarily Under Cooked)

Corrective measures include:

A. Insure that everyone is following the cooking temperature guidelines for all hot foods.

B. Checking and recording final cooking temperatures often.

C. Rapidly re-heating all leftovers to 165° within 2 hours.