Home / National Food Safety Month Week 3: Prepare food safely
Pathogens can move around easily, spreading from food or unwashed hands to prep areas, equipment, utensils, and other food. But you can prevent it.
Cross-contamination is the transfer of pathogens from one surface or food to another, and it can happen at almost any point in the flow of food through your operation. However, when you know how and where it could happen, it’s easy to prevent.
Here are six tips from the National Restaurant Association ServSafe team to help you prevent cross-contamination.
► Ready-to-eat food ► Seafood ► Whole cuts of beef and pork ► Ground meat and ground fish ► Whole and ground poultry
If food comes into direct contact with a surface, it’s considered a food-contact surface. Many of the utensils and equipment you use have food-contact surfaces—plates, glasses, forks and tongs are examples. You can contaminate these surfaces if you’re not careful when handling them.
Utensils and equipment with food-contact surfaces, such as cutting boards, must be stored in ways that prevent contamination. The same is true for nonfood items such as napkins, plastic forks and knives.
Kitchen and serving staff must do their part to avoid serving food that contains allergens to people with food allergies. Here are some things you can do:
Most foodborne illness happens because TCS food has been time-temperature abused.
Guests want to know restaurants are being extra careful when preparing food and keeping the kitchen clean and sanitized during the pandemic.
Campaign promotes rules for safe food handling, which is even more important during the coronavirus threat.