Food Receiving, Storage, Preparation, and Temperature Control
The temperature chain
Control begins at the door. Reject frozen food showing thaw and refreeze, damaged packaging, off-odors, or temperatures above the accepted limit: cold time/temperature control for safety (TCS) food at 41°F (5°C) or below, hot food at 135°F (57°C) or above, shell eggs and milk received at 45°F (7°C) or below and chilled promptly. Shellstock tags must be kept, matched to product, and retained a set period after the last sale so shellfish can be traced.
Store by cook temperature, top to bottom: ready-to-eat food, then seafood and whole cuts, then ground meat, then poultry. Date-mark prepared TCS food held more than 24 hours, counting the day of preparation as day one, and use within seven days at 41°F or below. Freeze date-marked food to pause the clock.
Cooking and cooling carry the highest risk of confused numbers. Poultry and stuffed foods reach 165°F (74°C); ground meat 155°F (68°C); whole-muscle meat 145°F (63°C) with a rest; fish and eggs 145°F. Cooling must move food from 135°F to 70°F (57°C to 21°C) within two hours and to 41°F within four more, six hours total. Reheat to 165°F within two hours. Hold hot at 135°F and cold at 41°F, and use the four-hour rule only under an approved written time-as-a-control procedure.
Traps: applying the six-hour cooling total but forgetting the intermediate 70°F checkpoint; counting cooling day as day one of date marking; and using the danger zone (41-135°F) as a target rather than a limit to avoid. Worked example: a stock cools to 70°F in 90 minutes and to 40°F in three more hours, acceptable because both stages met their limits.