FSA Cold Storage Compliance

If you are a chef operating a commercial kitchen, a food manufacturer or grocery store, you are required by law to follow several food safety procedures. One that is particularly important is managing the temperatures of your fridges and freezers. It is crucial for you to maintain safe temperatures for food storage to ensure you minimise bacterial growth and keep the food that you serve or sell to customers safe. As controlling your fridge and freezer temperatures is such a critical step, the Food Standards Agency mandates that regular daily checks and clear records are kept for all cold storage units. Many establishments fail to follow this process, which means you could be at risk of running their fridges and freezers at unsafe and illegal temperatures and potentially losing food hygiene certifications if an Environmental Health Officer inspects your premises.

The traditional way to track commercial fridge and freezer temperatures is by performing a manual inspection and maintaining a temperature log which demonstrates to enforcing authorities that you are following legal requirements. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommends that you check and record your fridge and freezer temperatures at least once per day, which for a large supermarket for instance could present a time-consuming task for one or more members of staff. However, depending on the level of risk, you may want to check more frequently. For example, if your food business is open for long hours and people regularly open and close fridges throughout the day. A more diligent manual approach may be to carry out three checks; once when staff arrive, once in the afternoon with a final check in the evening, but even this schedule may miss vital events.

If you run a busy food business environment there are many scenarios where cold storage temperatures may drift outside safe limits without immediate detection. The following situations are just a few examples:

– Human error where a member of staff records a temperature incorrectly or forgets to check one or more units
– A fridge or freezer unit door is not closed properly
– Hot food has been stored in a fridge or freezer too early raising the internal temperature above safe limits
– A fridge may become overfilled restricting the space for air to circulate and maintain the set temperature accurately
– A cold storage unit may be affected by strong sunlight at certain times of the day
– A unit may be showing signs of failure and be unable to maintain safe temperatures during active use
– A member of staff may accidentally switch a unit off or forget to switch a unit back on after cleaning

The legal requirement for businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is for cold food to be kept at 8 °C or below. It is best practice is to keep your fridge below 5 °C, to make sure that food is kept cold enough and to ensure that every part of the fridge remains at an acceptable temperature. Cold display units often require particular attention in a busy environment where they have a constant turnaround of produce being loaded and removed for preparation. When serving or displaying chilled food, the maximum amount of time you can hold it at temperatures higher than 8 °C is 4 hours.

Food business operators must also be aware of the temperature danger zone. This is the term used to describe the temperature range where food is most at risk of developing harmful bacteria and causing illness to anyone who handles or consumes it. Keeping food out of the danger zone will ensure it is safe to eat by limiting the growth of bacteria. The FSA sets the danger zone between 8 °C and 63 °C, and this is the range you want to keep your food out of. This means that food is safest when it is either frozen, chilled below 8 °C, or heated beyond 63 °C. Best practice recommends that food to be heated beyond 70 °C for 2 minutes to further remove bacteria and to not keep food for long periods of time in the temperature range of 5 °C to 63 °C. There is legislative guidance in place providing recommendations on how to cool foods quickly to avoid bacteria multiplying and to reduce food poisoning incidents. Chilling of hot food should begin within 90 minutes after the cooking cycle has completed, this is known as the ‘90-minute rule’. For further information visit www.food.gov.uK

– Dividing food into smaller portions.
– With larger cooked items such as joints of meat, cut them in half or break them down into smaller portions if possible.
– Spread foods such as pasta or rice flat out on a tray to assist cooling.
– Move hot food containers to a colder area such as a storeroom or larder.
– Stand containers in cold or iced water.
– Stir hot food regularly while it is chilling.