Food Safety Week-would your premises pass the Kitchen Check?

Food Safety Week is an annual event organised by the Food Standards Agency – its starts on the 10th June and the theme this year is the Kitchen Check ( a copy of the leaflet is attached to this post)

RedCat will be blooging throughout the week- but we have devised a quiz which will be posted at www.redcat.gb.comon Monday and will be open to all to enter until the end of Friday 14th June

The prize is to win a ‘Food Safety Inspector’ type visit to your premises; one of the RedCat team will come along with our swabbing machine and check the cleanliness of your kitchen

But some Food Safety tips- linking to the key themes of Food Safety Week are

Cleaning Hands are one of the main ways germs are spread. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and warm water before preparing and handling food, cooking and after touching the bin, going to the toilet, handling pets or handling raw food. Wash or change dish cloths, tea towels, sponges and oven gloves regularly and let them dry before you use them again. Dirty, damp cloths are the perfect place for bacteria to breed.

Our kit will be able to tell how clean your surfaces are; we also use an Ultra Violet Kit on our training courses to see just how good hand washing is

Avoiding Cross Contamination • Cross contamination occurs when harmful germs/bacteria are spread between food, surfaces and equipment. You can help to prevent this by removing clutter that you don’t need and cleaning worktops before and after food preparation. • Always use a chopping board. Wash the board and other utensils in hot, soapy water when you’ve finished using them and in between preparing raw food (meat, poultry, eggs, fish and raw vegetables) and ready-to-eat food. Better still, use a separate chopping board for each type of food.

Chilling • Make sure your fridge is set between 0 and 5 degrees, you can use a a fridge thermometer to check. This is to prevent harmful bacteria from multiplying to dangerous levels • Don’t overfill your fridge. This allows air to circulate and maintains the set temperature. • Store raw meat and poultry at the bottom of the fridge and properly wrap or cover it to avoid raw juices contaminating other foods.

Cooking food thoroughly • Cook food thoroughly until it is steaming hot in the middle. This will kill any harmful bacteria that may be present. You do not need a probe for this- check that the juices are clear and that there has been a colour change

This is particularly important with BBQ’s!

Understanding ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates • ‘Use by’ dates are typically found on perishable products (dairy, meat and fish) and are based on scientific testing to determine how long these foods will stay safe. After that date, food could be unsafe to eat even if it is correctly stored and looks and smells fine. • ‘Best before’ dates are used on foods that have a longer shelf life and tell us how long the food will be at its best. After that date it may be safe to eat, but its flavour and texture might have deteriorated. • The exception to this rule is eggs which have a ‘best before’ rather than a ‘use by’ date. Providing the eggs are cooked thoroughly, they can be eaten a day or two after their ‘best before’ date but not longer than this. • Check the ‘use by’ dates on the food in your fridge on a regular basis and be sure to use (eat, cook or freeze) food before its ‘use by’ to help you avoid throwing food away unnecessarily. • Once food with a ‘use-by’ date has been opened, follow any storage instructions such as ‘eat within two days of opening’.

Using leftovers safely Using up leftovers can be a good way of making a meal go further. • If you are going to store leftovers in the fridge, cool leftovers as quickly as possible (ideally within 90 minutes) cover them well, get them in the fridge and eat them up within two days. • If you are going to freeze them, cool them before putting them in your freezer, to minimise temperature fluctuation in the freezer. Once foods are in the freezer, they can be safely stored there forever – but the quality will deteriorate so it’s best to eat them within three months. • Make sure you defrost leftovers properly first. Defrost them in the fridge, or in the microwave if you intend to cook them straightaway. • Eat leftovers within 24 hours of defrosting and do not refreeze. The only exception to this is if you are defrosting raw food, such as meat or poultry, once you have cooked this it can be refrozen. • Cook leftovers until steaming hot throughout. • Don’t reheat leftovers more than once.

If you would like to enter our quiz or if you have any Food Safety Questions- then do please contact us