From street pop-ups to food trucks, and restaurants and start-ups, food safety and hygiene should be the top priority for any catering and food industry business. Failure to comply with these guidelines can have serious implications and consequences, and if repeat offenders fail to act on their warnings, can result in a closure of their business. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, here are some food storage safety tips to help keep your food fresh, your business in ship-shape and your commercial kitchen conforming with food industry rules and regulations for all occasions.
Why is Food Safety and Storage so very important?
Any business that hopes to thrive in this world must know that they live or die by the confidence a consumer has in their products. Whether it’s food, electronics, events or services, news travels really fast. Today, with the advance of social media, in particular, a slight bit of bad press goes a long way. When that bad press is about the food we put into our bodies, you can definitely bet that word travels even faster.
Food Storage Tips keeping in mind food safety regulations –
In the food industry, it all starts from here. We are sharing some advice on how to store fresh foods in your catering commercial kitchen to ensure they’re safe to eat. Your kitchen planning must be such that your kitchen planning adheres to all rules and regulations of safety for food storage. Everything cannot be stored at room temperature. Keep your fresh ingredients fresh and your prepared foods optimal and keeping a constant correct temperature requires properly insulated cold rooms with sophisticated sensor systems. This is a very important step in commercial kitchen design and planning. Keep all of your food separate from each other. Don’t forget about the basic food hygiene rules such as cooked meat can’t be stored next to raw foods. Too many businesses get caught out and cross-contamination can cause heavy food poisoning.
The same principle applies to food handling as well.
Wrap the perishable food items. All perishables should be securely wrapped in plastic wrap, or stored in a plastic bag and this includes frozen food as well. Don’t store your food for durations which are too long and ready to eat food should either be frozen or eaten within two days. Keep all of the storage areas cold and dry for maximum safety. It should go without saying that all food such as dairy products should remain in the fridge but even non-fridge produce should be stored hygienically and systematically for maximum safety.
How Can We Help You In This Process?
We at HPG will consult you as storing food safely is a top priority for us always. We will plan your commercial kitchen with our highly advanced commercial kitchen planning techniques and will give you the best results.
Safety advice about storing food in the fridge.
Always marinate food in the refrigerator as bacteria can multiply rapidly in foods left to marinate at room temperature. Also, never reuse the marinating liquid as a sauce unless you bring it to a rapid boil first. Clean the fridge out frequently or daily for that matter. This helps reduce the growth of Listeria bacteria and prevents drips from thawing meat that can allow bacteria from one food to spread to another which can cause deadly food poisoning.
Ensure to throw away any paper towels used in the cleaning process and don’t use them again!
Store refrigerated foods in covered containers or sealed storage bags, and check leftovers daily for spoilage or damage. Store eggs in their carton in the refrigerator itself rather than on the door, where the temperature is much warmer and can lead to the spoilage of the eggs. A “use by” date means that the manufacturer recommends using the product by this date for the best flavour or quality; however this date is not a food safety date. At some point after the use-by date, a product may change in taste, colour, texture, or nutrient content, but the product may be wholesome and safe long after that date but If you’re not sure or if the food looks questionable like it could be past its shelf life, throw it out as it is better to be safe than sorry.
The exception to this is infant formula as infant formula and some baby foods are unique in that they must be used by the use-by date that appears on the package otherwise it may be really harmful for the baby consuming them.