Food Safety Certification MN Archives

October 25, 2021October 11, 2021

Food Safety Advice For Hosting Down Home Wild Game Dinners

Hunting season is upon us for water fowl and will soon open for deer. Fall hunting is a great Minnesota tradition, and many food safety managers love to celebrate the season with hosting wild game dinners. When hosting an event where wild game is served, there are a few special procedures food safety managers need to pay attention to, so it’s important to review the special regulations for wild game dinners.

Wild Game Dinners and Food Safety Protocols

If you’re planning on hosting a wild game dinner, it’s important to note that these types of dinners can only be held for charity and not at for profit events. This means that if you’re a certified food manager wanting to serve locally hunted or trapped game in your restaurant, you’ll have to find a source that’s been approved for sale for food service purposes. Fundraising events, however, can host wild game events as long as the donated game meets the proper criteria. Game served a wild game dinners must meet the following food safety standards:

Has been legally hunted or trapped
Is pure, unground animal meat
Was properly cleaned at a Minnesota Department of Agriculture licensed facility
Was eviscerated less than two hours after harvest

To be legally hunted, the animal must have been taken in season and in an area where hunting is allowed by licensed hunters. Any wild game animal, be it bird, deer or other game, taken illegally cannot be offered at these events. They also must be cleaned in a facility licensed by the MDA to ensure procedures have been followed to prevent cross contamination and that other food safety protocols have been followed. Game that was processed at a private residence or unlicensed facility cannot be served. It’s also important to make sure the animal is processed as soon as possible after it was caught. Hunters have a two-hour window to make sure remove the bowels of any animal intended for a wild game dinner.

On a final note, it’s also required that a full receipt be obtained by the organization accepting the wild game donation. This receipt must contain the name, address and license number of the donating party as well as the date the meat was obtained.

Do you host charitable fundraisers that include serving wild game? Were you aware of the special food safety regulations wild game dinners?

September 13, 2021September 9, 2021

Scary Simple Front Of House Food Safety Precautions

Kitchen personnel have easy access to gloves, serving utensils and other tools to help them avoid bare hand contact with any ready-to-eat foods, but servers, bar tenders and busboys tend to have a much more hectic pace to their routine and may be further away from supplies when it comes to bare hand contact and ready-to-eat foods. With a few simple precautions, we can ensure that the front of the house keeps the same food safety standards as the kitchen.

Avoiding Front Of House Bare Hand Contact with Ready-to-Eat Foods Has A Huge Impact on Food Safety

The Minnesota Food Code states that there can be no bare hand contact with food that is ready to serve. This includes cooked foods, raw fruits and vegetables and any other items ready for consumption. For the kitchen, this is pretty straight forward, but bar tenders and servers come into contact with these types of foods as well. Some examples include:

Fresh bread
Garnishes for drinks
Leftovers to be boxed up
Unique items held at server stations

Bread, garnishes, drinks and leftovers cannot be handled with bare hands. There are also some unique situations that can be a food safety hazard when handled with bare hands such as table snacks, fruit and vegetable slices for kid’s meals and a number of other possibilities. Just remember, if the food goes directly from its holding place to a customer’s plate, it should be considered a ready-to-eat food.

One-use disposable gloves are recommended when handling ready-to-eat products, but it can be a time consuming reparative task for the hustle of the wait staff’s routine during high-volume service. Tongs, spatulas and other utensils that can easily transport food on to plate or into drinks are acceptable and much easier to use than constantly changing gloves. However, when bagging up leftovers or continually handling garnishes for extended periods of time before returning to the dining room floor, single-use food service gloves may be the best option.

Always remember to wash your hands thoroughly and promote food safety training in the front of the house when it comes to handling ready-to-eat product.

Have you reviewed food safety training procedures for handling prepared food on the dining room floor?

August 2, 2021July 10, 2021

Could Food Safety Managers Actually See Insects On Their Menus In The Future?

Could Food Safety Managers Actually See Novel Foods On Their Menus In The Future

“Waiter! Waiter! There’s no fly in my soup!” is something we never expect a guest to exclaim while dining out, but will food safety managers need to be ready for that in the future? While we find no trend on edible insects in the United States, the EU has recently begun investigating yellow meal worms as a novel food source. While there isn’t any mainstream call to begin serving meal worms in restaurants all across the US or European continent. Novel foods, like meal worms, bring up an interesting question as to where exactly the line is for what food safety science determines will be safe to eat and what’s not.

Will the Food Safety Industry Embrace Novel Foods?

If we look at the history of edible food, we’ll see ancient cultures considered some foods unacceptable to eat that are common on our plates today while some ate foods we would never think about ordering at a restaurant. Some food historians suggest that unclean or forbidden foods may have become unacceptable due to the illnesses cause by consuming them. Parasites, bacteria and viruses we can control today with proper preparation directed by a certified food safety manager were potentially deadly before food safety science was even a theory.

Other plants and animals have been kept off of plates for centuries because, well, they just seem gross. Who really wants a few crawling mealworms in their salad? But we don’t imagine the first person to see a lobster thought that it might be delicious based on appearance.

According to the study, the novel food, yellow meal worms pose no high-level food safety risks. In fact, the study showed that they’re mainly composed of protein, fat and fiber. All ingredients digestible and usable by the human body.

We’re probably a long way off from seeing insects on our menus, but would you ever consider serving a novel food such as meal worms or other non-traditional ingredient?

July 12, 2021July 10, 2021

Expert Food Safety Tips For The Return Of Food Truck Festivals

After a year of restrictions, the activities our area is famous for are returning and Minnesota residents are eager to resume their summer adventures. Events like Minnesota Food Truck Festival are coming back after being cancelled in 2020, and we can’t be more exited. With an estimated 50 vendors, live music, games and other activities, you may want to mark your calendars on July 17th in St. Paul and August 12st in Anoka for these events. If you’re a food truck owner, it’s probably been a while since you’ve had these kind of opportunities, so it’s helpful to review a few food safety training protocols for food trucks.

Food Safety Tips For The Return Of Food Truck Festivals — Image credit: City of Anoka

Food Truck Food Safety Training for Large Events

Food truck operators face unique challenges when it comes to food safety due to the nature of their business. Food truck kitchens are smaller, must rely on outside sources for water and other utilities and must operate with limited staff due to the cramped kitchen space. Here are our top three food safety risks food truck owners must monitor:

Handwashing capabilities
Cross-contamination potential
Time and temperature control

Many food trucks don’t have an unlimited supply of water built in, so operators should find locations with an onsite water supply for handwashing. Fortunately, most sites that host food trucks will have water access available. Just remember that your location must have hot water available in order to ensure properly washed hands. Depending on the volume of business, some jurisdictions allow an onboard water tank to be used as a water supply. If your truck has that capability, be sure to test your supply to ensure it’s hot enough to ensure clean hands. Remember that every time you change gloves or touch raw foods, you need to wash your hands properly.

Due to the limited storage, there is ample potential for cross contamination. In order to prevent foodborne illness from cross contamination, we suggest using separate cold storage for raw product, produce and ready-to-eat-foods.

Finally, many food truck operators hot hold certain items in order to improve efficiency. Food safety managers who operate food trucks should periodically review proper time and temperature control with any employees working in their food truck.

Do you operate a food truck or plan on attending a food truck festival this summer?