MN Food Safety Archives

November 26, 2018November 12, 2018

Food Safety Training and Non-Continuous Cooking

In our research into upcoming MN food code changes, we’ve noted a new addition; non-continuous cooking. This means that as long as certain parameters are met, you can halt the cooking process for certain items and finish at a later time. Many risks exist when cooking is halted, so this week we’d like to discuss how to safely prepare food using this method.

A Non-Continuous Cooking Food Safety Training Guide

We must first point out that in order to prepare raw animal foods using a non-continuous cooking method, you must have a well-documented written procedure and obtain approval from your local health department. You should provide safe food training to your staff on this process and develop written instructions that include the following information:

Initial Cooking Time
Cooling Method
Storing Procedure
Reheating Method

If you do not plan on cooking raw animal product all the way to the appropriate temperature, you can only halt the process if the initial cooking time is under 60 minutes. After 60 minutes, you must continue the cooking process until an acceptable internal temperature has been reached.

Once you halt the cooking process, you must bring the internal temperature down to 41-degrees as soon as possible. This will prevent undercooked meat product from resting at temperatures known to speed up the growth of potentially dangerous bacteria. Once cooled, the par-cooked product must remain under proper refrigeration.

Finally, when it comes time to finish the cooking process, remember that your product must be fully cooked to the proper temperature.

It’s important to stress and repeat that if you plan on using this method for any raw animal product, you must have well-documented plan and regulatory approval.

Once this new MN food code rule goes into effect, we’ll monitor enforcement and provide more food safe training on this topic in the future. How do you feel about the allowance for non-continuous cooking?

September 17, 2018September 5, 2018

Prepackaged Food Safety Training

Most restaurants make their menu items in their own kitchens, but some chain restaurants with a multitude of locations and other facilities may not have the luxury of staff or kitchen space so they bring in certain prepackaged items to fill out their menus. In these cases, the distributor is the one who prepares and packages these meals, salad mixes or other ready-to-eat foods, so how much responsibility do you have to take to ensure prepackaged items are safe? We’ll take a look at prepackaged food safety training.

Prepackaged Food Safety Training and Food-Borne Illness Risks

McDonalds recently fell victim to a food-poisoning outbreak in 15 states that was traced back to a salad mix that was prepared by Fresh Express and shipped to a large number of McDonalds restaurants. Just like July’s cases involving Del Monte vegetable trays, this salad mix was found to be contaminated with a parasite called Cylcosporiasis. In both of these cases, the parasites came from an outside source and not the restaurants, grocery stores or other outlets that sold them.

As food service managers, we cannot simply assume that these cases won’t happen to us, and if they do we need to have a better response than; “I didn’t make it, not my problem.” We need to use our food safety training in all instances, whether we’ve prepared the food ourselves or brought it in from an outside source. In the case of salad mixes and prepackaged vegetables, you’re still safe to wash and rinse these types of produce even if the sealed plastic bag declares that its contents are “ready to eat.” This extra precaution may save big headaches in the long run should the product be contaminated.

You should also take steps to prevent sickening your staff from non-produce items. Sometimes, undeclared allergens appear in dressings, snack bars and many other types of pre-packaged foods. We recommend vigilance in checking the FDA’s recall alert page. Here you can find a searchable list of all recent recalls due to contaminates or allergens.

Do you serve prepackaged, ready-to-eat foods in your facility? If so, do you provide prepackaged food training to your staff to ensure it is safe for your customers?

August 13, 2018

Food Safety Training and Current Food Poisoning Statistics

Official statistics help us keep an eye on the state of food safety in our country. Recently, Food Safety News published a summary of a CDC report detailing the most common causes of food borne-illness. There are a few interesting findings in this report, but when breaking down this summary, we noticed two causes of illness that can be prevented or controlled with proper food safety training.

Using Food-Illness Statistics for Food Safety Training

In the statistics released from this five year study, over 100,000 confirmed cases of food poisoning were recorded. Out of these cases, 5,699 were hospitalized and food-borne illness was responsible for 145 deaths. If we break down these cases to root causes, we can begin to see patterns that we can use for effective food safety training to target common pathogens.

Chicken was the cause of 12-percent of these cases, causing us to believe that many of these situations were the result of under-cooked poultry. It is vitally important to train your staff how to handle chicken properly. There are numerous cross-contamination risks involved in processing raw chicken. Process raw chicken away from areas where ready-to-eat product is being prepared and always store raw poultry on the bottom shelf. Finally, making sure to verify that your chicken has been cooked to 165-degrees is vitally important. We recommend that you use a thermocouple thermometer when verifying the temperature of chicken. These thermometers are highly accurate and ideal for measuring thin chicken breasts and smaller pieces of meat.

The study also shows that the Norovirus was responsible for over 27,000 cases of food-borne illness. Training can go a long way towards preventing Norovirus poisonings. Teach your staff to stay home when they are sick, wash their hands properly and frequently and to avoid bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat foods. Enforcing these three easy-to-do food handling procedures greatly reduces the risk of spreading the Norovirus.

While this study points out quite a few other causes of outbreaks, proper training reduces the risk of poisoning via improperly prepared chicken or the Norovirus. Are there any other ways you use statistics to target food safety training in your facility?

August 6, 2018July 9, 2018

MN Food Safety and National Regulatory Agency Consolidation

At Safe Food Training, we usually avoid commenting on the political landscape unless it directly relates to MN food safety and certified food managers. However, as part of the current administration’s effort to consolidate select federal agencies, a proposal has been put forth to form a single federal food safety agency under the umbrella of the USDA.

How Proposed Federal Agency Reorganization Might Affect MN Food Safety

As things currently stand, two agencies, the Food and Drug Administration and a branch of the USDA known as the Food Safety and Inspection Service, have different levels of regulatory power when it comes to food safety in our country. Since there are two agencies, we have to ask what is the difference between the two?

After some research, we’ve discovered that one of the major differences between the two agencies involves what types of products they inspect. For example, the USDA and the FSIS may be responsible for the inspection of poultry, meats and eggs while fruits and vegetables fall under FDA jurisdiction. Meats and canned products containing meat receive quite a bit of scrutiny during inspections by the USDA, but many times large quantities of non-meat canned products, such as applesauce or tomato soup, go uninspected before shipped to consumers. Some seafood and fish products belong under the jurisdiction of one agency or the other. Catfish, for example, is regulated by the USDA while other fresh-water fish are inspected by the FDA.

The line becomes more and more blurred as we delve into pre-made products. The FDA is in charge of closed-faced meat sandwiches, while FSIS regulates open-faced meat sandwiches. This means that one agency regulates frozen pizzas and the other mass-produced pre-packaged breakfast sandwiches. These varied regulations make us wonder if any products slip through this confusing inspection process and pose potential health risks to consumers.

The consolidation of federal food safety agencies is not a partisan issue, or even a new one. The Obama administration put forth a similar proposal during their tenure in the White House.

There may be pros and cons of creating one agency that encompasses all of national food safety regulations and inspection. As a certified food manager with a professional interest in MN food safety, do you feel that a single regulatory agency will help keep the raw ingredients you use safer, or do you think multiple, clearly defined agencies are necessary for extended oversight of national food safety.