We should all be thinking food safety, when it comes to socialising over a BBQ
With summer on its way, we should all be thinking food safety, when it comes to socialising over a BBQ. The Food Safe team has put together a comprehensive list for checking your food safety knowledge.
Do you:
- Clean your BBQ before use
- Avoid using steel wool to clean your BBQ (as this can be brittle and cross-contaminate food)
- Ensure all cleaning chemicals are well rinsed off with plenty of water
- Use pre-cooked meat (including sausages & chicken)
- Wash all fruit, vegetables, and salad leaves
- Ensure all food handlers’ clothes are clean
- Use disposable aprons and change as often as possible
- Wear a hat or hair net
- Have a hand wash basin handy
- Wash hands between tasks, use soap, lather for at least 20 seconds, and use a nailbrush
- Have a good quality sanitizer handy and use it
- Have disposable gloves handy, use them and change between tasks (including handling money, your phone, or other tasks)
- Keep plenty of ice handy
- Have chilled product waiting to be cooked stored in a chilly bin
- Ensure that chilly bins are stored off the ground
- Have hot product waiting to be re-heated, covered and stored hot above +70C, till its re-heated to 85C
- Ensure all your meat is heated right through to the center
- Avoid judging whether meat is fully cooked by just checking for the clarity of its juices or loss of pinkness around the bone
- Use a temperature probe to check that the internal temperature of cooked food is +80C
- Sanitise the temperature probe with a probe wipe before use
- Keep cooked food covered and hot, above +70C
- Use an ice bath for all perishable sauces such as mayonnaise
- Keep and use separate brushes for separate marinades
- Use separate tongs to handle uncooked food and separate tongs to handle cooked food
- Avoid buckets for tongs wherever possible and store tongs separately
- Cover all food
- Secure the BBQ area and keep pets and birds away
- Use garbage ties to keep waste in bags secure and less attractive to pests such as flies
- Clean down your BBQ after use
If you answered yes to all the questions, you are a Food Safe star!
If no, not to worry, this check-list will make sure you get there in no time.
Food Safe offers food safety training, health and safety training, HACCP courses, and internal auditing solutions for businesses in the food and related sectors across New Zealand. If you need food safety training, small or big, Food Safe will be happy to assist. Call us on 0800 003 097 or email us at [email protected]
