To maintain the best kitchen environment possible, it's crucial to follow food safety guidelines because cross-contamination can result in foodborne illnesses. Foods can become contaminated by bacteria and viruses from a variety of factors during the food preparation process. Learn about the best ways to prevent food cross-contamination and remove allergens in your commercial kitchen.
What Is Cross-Contamination?
Cross-contamination takes place when harmful bacteria is transferred from one food to another. The most common way of this occurring is when raw meat, seafood, or poultry makes contact with cooked food. Raw foods can easily contaminate other food items when chefs use their hands or unsanitized utensils to handle ingredients.
How Can I Prevent Cross-Contamination?
"How can I avoid cross-contamination?" is a question many chefs should ask themselves to ensure they're following food safety guidelines when preparing dishes. To guarantee every meal is free of dangerous bacteria, it's important to understand the different ways you can prevent cross-contamination in your kitchen.
Store Food Correctly
Believe it or not, cross-contamination can occur by the way you store food. It's important to correctly put away food in your commercial fridge because contaminants can easily spread from one food item to another. For example, ready-to-eat meals can be contaminated by raw meat if both products aren't stored properly. We've created a list to inform you of how every commercial kitchen should store food products. Here's how to store food safely in your kitchen:
- Always wrap or cover food and don't store ingredients in unsanitized containers or with cleaning materials.
- Keep raw meat, poultry, and seafood separate from ready-to-eat food.
- Store ready-to-eat food on the top shelf to prevent juices from raw food dripping onto premade food.
- Store raw food products on the bottom shelf so they can't make contact with other foods.
Properly Prepare Meals
Whenever you're about to prepare a meal, ensure that countertops, cutting boards, kitchen tools, and other equipment are thoroughly sanitized. Failing to properly clean kitchen equipment will result in contaminated food items. For instance, if you place raw meat on a plate but don't sanitize the plate after use, bacteria from the meat will be transferred to foods placed on the plate.
In order to safely prepare meals, a great place to start is by using different cutting boards for each type of ingredient. For example, cutting fruits and vegetables on the same board as raw seafood quickly becomes a safety hazard and causes food to be contaminated. It's highly recommended to use color-coded cutting boards when preparing meals. It provides chefs with a simple way to distinguish the difference between each cutting board and prevents cross-contamination. Each colored board is used for specific food products:
- Green: fruits and vegetables
- White: bakery and dairy products
- Purple: allergen-free products
- Brown: cooked meat
- Red: raw meat
- Yellow: raw poultry
- Blue: raw seafood
Properly Handle Prepared Meals
You may have followed all the food safety guidelines to prevent cross-contamination when preparing meals but that just isn't enough. Bacteria can still be transferred to prepared meals if they aren't handled properly. For instance, if chefs plate meals using the same cooking tools designated for different food items, viruses can quickly spread. This makes it crucial to use clean utensils when handling food in the kitchen.
Waitstaff and bartenders serve customers their orders and can also be the reason for cross-contamination in your establishment. This makes it crucial for your entire staff to know the food safety guidelines for handling food and serving customers. For example, servers should use ice scoops rather than their bare hands when preparing drinks and not hold glassware by the rim when serving beverages.
Practice Good Personal Hygiene Habits
If employees don't maintain proper hygiene, foods can easily become filled with bacteria. One of the most common hygiene practices in every kitchen is for employees to wash their hands after handling raw food products and using the restroom. However, there are a number of other personal hygiene rules that need to be followed to prevent cross-contamination:
- Wear clean clothes, hairnets, beard nets, and aprons
- Do not wear jewelry while handling food
- Use disposable gloves and change them when handling new food items
- Do not work if you are sick
- Cover wounds when working in the kitchen at all times
How To Clean Kitchen Equipment To Remove Allergens
There are a number of foods, like milk, peanuts, or fish, that may cause guests to have an allergic reaction if the equipment used to prepare dishes isn't cleaned properly. To remove allergens and prevent cross-contamination, kitchen employees need to consistently clean kitchen equipment.
When washing dishes by hand, dish soap and water removes food allergens. However, a dishcloth or sponge that comes into contact with allergens is more than likely filled with bacteria and therefore shouldn't be used to clean allergen-free dishes. When washing dishes, consider using a number of sponges or dishcloths. For instance, color code or label sponges that can be used to clean dishes free of allergens and designate other sponges that can be used for dishes with certain allergens.
Furthermore, it's necessary to frequently clean kitchen countertops because they may have food allergens. When cleaning countertops, wiping down surfaces with soapy water and a towel isn't enough. It's important to rinse countertops with fresh water and sanitize them with disinfecting towels or wipes. This ensures they are free of food allergens to avoid cross-contamination.
Keeping Your Kitchen Clean Is Key
By not properly storing ingredients, preparing meals, or cleaning kitchen equipment, foods can get contaminated and result in foodborne illnesses. This makes it essential to practice sanitary habits throughout the food preparation process. By implementing these food safety guidelines in your establishment, your business will prevent cross-contamination and be free of food allergens.
To safely prepare food, you should follow these tips:
- keep raw foods and ready-to-eat foods separate to avoid cross-contamination
- use separate, clean utensils and cutting boards for raw foods and ready-to-eat foods, or wash and sanitise utensils and cutting boards between uses
- thoroughly clean, sanitise and dry cutting boards, knives, pans, plates, containers and other utensils after using them
- thoroughly rinse all fruit and vegetables in clean water to remove soil, bacteria, insects and chemicals
- make sure food is thoroughly cooked and the centre of the cooked food has reached 75 °C
- avoid leaving recently cooked food out to cool for more than 1 hour; as soon as food has cooled, place it in the refrigerator
- know about and avoid the temperature danger zone - Bacteria grow quickly in high-risk foods that are kept at temperatures between 5 °C and 60 °C.
- thaw frozen food on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator to keep it out of the temperature danger zone
- take extra care when preparing foods that contain raw eggs – such as egg nog, homemade mayonnaise and aioli – because bacteria on the egg shells can contaminate the food
- be trained in safe food handling and preparation.
Safe food storage and display
To safely store and display food, you should follow these tips:
- keep raw foods and ready-to-eat foods separate, to avoid cross-contamination
- store food in clean, food-grade storage containers
- don’t store food in opened cans
- make sure food storage containers have not been used to store things other than food, and wash and sanitise them before use
- don’t reuse containers that are only meant to be used once
- if a reusable container is in poor condition, throw it out
- cover food with tight-fitting lids, foil or plastic film, to protect the food from dust, insects and cross-contamination
- wash and rinse any garnishes used on food
- store food in areas specially designed for food storage, such as refrigerators, coolrooms, pantries and food storerooms
- never store food on the floor or on pallets, or in areas containing chemicals, cleaning equipment, clothing or personal belongings
- remove and avoid using foods that are past their use-by dates, spoilt, or are in damaged containers or packaging
- know about and avoid the temperature danger zone - Bacteria grow quickly in high-risk foods that are kept at temperatures between 5 °C and 60 °C.
- be trained in safe food handling and preparation.
Cross-contamination
Raw food must be kept separate from cooked and ready-to-eat food. Raw food may contain bacteria, which causes food poisoning.
Cross-contamination happens when cooked or ready-to-eat food contacts raw food. Raw food should always be stored below ready-to-eat or cooked food in refrigerators and display cabinets. This way, juices from the raw food cannot drip onto cooked food.
Cross-contamination can also happen if you use dirty knives, chopping boards or other equipment. If possible, don’t use the same equipment when preparing raw food, and cooked and ready-to-eat food. Thoroughly clean and sanitise equipment after each use.
Bacteria can be transferred to food from your hands. Thoroughly wash and dry your hands before handling food, and between handling raw food and cooked or ready-to-eat food. Also use clean, sanitised utensils (tongs, spoons, spatulas) to handle cooked or ready-to-eat food.
Gloves
Disposable gloves can help prevent cross-contamination. The same precautions should be taken when handling raw food, and cooked or ready-to-eat foods. Wash and dry your hands thoroughly before putting on gloves, and always use fresh gloves.
Change your gloves:
- at least once every hour
- if they become contaminated
- if they tear
- when switching between handling raw and ready-to-eat foods
- when changing tasks
- after taking the rubbish out
- after sweeping, mopping and cleaning.
Temperature danger zone
The temperature danger zone is between 5 °C and 60 °C. Bacteria grow quickly in high-risk foods that are kept in this temperature range.
Cold food storage
You need to keep cold foods at 5 °C or colder, and keep frozen foods frozen solid during storage at –15 °C or colder. Cool rooms, refrigerators and freezers must have proper thermometers, and temperatures should be checked regularly.
Hot food preparation and display
Hot food must be kept at 60 °C or hotter. Bains-marie and other hot food holders are designed to keep food at this temperature.
Do not use bains-marie and similar equipment to heat food. If this equipment is used for heating food, the food will spend too long in the temperature danger zone.
Before placing food in the bain-marie, make sure the food is thoroughly cooked. Ensure that the centre of the cooked food has reached 75 °C. Most bacteria are killed when food is cooked properly.
Some tips for safely using bains-marie include:
- preheat bains-marie before use and operate them on the highest temperature setting
- make sure the temperature of the food does not fall below 60 °C
- use a clean thermometer to check the temperature of the food
- do not overfill bain-marie trays, because the temperature of the food could fall below 60 °C.
Cooling food
Food that has been cooked should not be left out to cool for more than 1 hour. As soon as food has cooled, place it in the refrigerator or freezer.
Note that large portions of food cool faster if divided into smaller portions.
Thawing frozen food
Be sure to keep frozen food frozen solid while it is in the freezer.
Thaw food thoroughly before cooking. Bacteria can grow in frozen food while it is thawing, so keep frozen food out of the temperature danger zone. To do this, thaw frozen food on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator (so the juices do not drip onto other foods) and keep it in the fridge until it is ready to be cooked.
If using a microwave oven to thaw food, cook it immediately after defrosting.
If you have to cook food that is still frozen, make sure that the food is cooked right through, and that its core temperature reaches 75 °C.
Do not refreeze food that has been frozen and thawed already. Freezing does not kill bacteria, and live bacteria are still in food when it is thawed again.
Food serving and labelling
Store food in clean, food-grade storage containers that are strong enough for the food they contain. If containers are reusable, wash and sanitise them before using them. Do not reuse containers that are only meant to be used once.
Food labels or tags can carry bacteria. For cooked and ready-to-eat food, use tags or labels on the trays or containers, and not on the food itself. Be sure not to pierce cooked or ready-to-eat food with tags or labels.
When serving food, make sure that all cutlery and crockery is clean and undamaged.