EHA Food Safety and Epidemiology Blog

Keeping Food Safe During Storage

The walk-in and reach-in refrigerators and the dry goods storage room, typically receive great scrutiny during regulatory inspections of retail food service operations. There are a number of food safety practices that signal that a facility is adhering to good management practices (GMPs).

While conducting self-inspections in these areas of your operation, ask yourself the following questions concerning these seven common inspector observations:

Taking temperatures properly

There are several different mistakes that are made when taking the temperature of potentially hazardous food items.

These mistakes include: not inserting the bi-metal probe thermometer into the deepest portion of the food, taking temperatures of meats too close to the bone in the space created when meat separates from the bone, not using a calibrated thermometer, and not insuring that the thermometer has been properly cleaned and sanitized prior to use.

These issues can not only provide a false sense of food security, but also may contribute to cross contamination.

Ensuring Microbial Quality of Protein Salads in the Retail Environment

Over 20 years of laboratory analysis of food items collected during routine food safety inspections has confirmed to us the importance of treating vegetables and other raw items added to protein salads, including tuna, chicken, ham, turkey, and shrimp/seafood salads.

In the past, we recommend blanching vegetables in boiling water for at least one minute to reduce microbial load without significantly altering taste and texture.