Timely Hints On Food Storage For Food Safety Certification

Proper storage of all types of food products, whether raw meats, dairy, produce or fully prepared foods, is essential in any branch of the food service industry. Improperly stored food can lead to loss of profits due to waste, food-borne illness due to cross contamination and wasted time while employees search for product. This post provides timely hints on food storage regulations that go beyond food safety certification.

Image credit: National Center for Environmental Health

Food Safety Certification MN Tips On Meat Storage

Meat storage tends to be the most misunderstood and poorly implemented procedure when it comes to food storage. Raw meat should always be stored below cooked product, but food safety certification MN states that raw meats should be kept separate during storage and production. One way to ensure the safe storage of raw products and prevent cross contamination is by storing products with lower cooking temperatures on higher shelves than those with higher temperatures. The properly organized refrigerator should look like this in descending order if you store raw meats on the same rack.

• Raw steaks and full cuts of beef (145 degrees minimum)
• Raw ground beef (155 degrees)
• Raw poultry (165 degrees)

You will notice that we have not included seafood on our list. Even though seafood has a minimum cooking temperature of 145 degrees, we recommend separating it further from all other product. We feel that this is an important food safety certification precaution for food storage to protect those who have allergies to seafood and shellfish.

The optimal way to achieve proper storage is to have dedicated areas for meat, dairy, and produce. Larger outlets such as large-scale food manufacturing plants can easily achieve this by using multiple refrigeration units. Many restaurants, hotels, and smaller institutional facilities do not have this luxury, so diligence is important.

Tips for Streamlining Food Storage

The first tip food safety certification to ensure proper food storage is to label everything. Food labeling and dating should occur when received or prepared. This is the obvious first step, and is required to know for food safety certification in MN, but it is helpful to take labeling one step further than minimum requirements.

Label the sections, shelves and empty spaces in your refrigerators. Employees will be able to see the designated storage location for each type of product. It will also prevent the confusion of a storage system that constantly changes.

Another tip is to store produce and meat as far away from each other as possible. In many cases, this can be achieved by splitting refrigeration space in half. One side of a walk-in refrigerator will contain produce, the other meat products. Two separate refrigerators would be the ideal storage solution, but this is not always achievable. In cramped quarters, the labeling of all available space will streamline your storage process.

Proper food storage appears simple on paper, but implementing an organized system is well worth the vigilance.