Deli Tongs, One Basin, and a Missing Red Board
A busy city deli serves sandwiches and hot rotisserie chicken. At 12:30 the counter has one hand-wash basin, which is also used to fill a jug for rinsing salad. A food handler uses the same tongs to move raw chicken from a marinating tray to the rotisserie and then to serve cooked chicken from the hot-hold unit. The hot-hold unit is set to 60°C and food is held for up to four hours. The deli has a colour-coded board system, but the red board is missing and staff use the green salad board for raw chicken. The manager says the chicken is cooked to 75°C so any bacteria are killed. A customer with a severe egg allergy orders a chicken sandwich; the mayonnaise is stored in an open jar with a spoon that was also used for a tuna mix. The deli has 14 staff, high turnover, and the last external audit found two major non-conformities on separation.
1. Explain why cooking the chicken to 75°C does not control the cross-contamination risks in this deli.
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Cooking the chicken to 75°C controls bacteria inside the chicken, but it does not control cross-contamination after cooking. The same tongs move raw chicken and then cooked chicken, so the cooked product is recontaminated at the point of service. The green salad board used for raw chicken then contacts ready-to-eat salad, which is not cooked. The hand-wash basin is being used to rinse salad, so it is not available for hand hygiene and it becomes a contamination route. The hot-hold unit at 60°C is also below the usual 63°C minimum, so surviving bacteria can multiply during up to four hours of holding. Separately, the mayonnaise spoon used with tuna mix creates an egg cross-contact risk for the egg-allergic customer. Cooking is only one CCP; separation, cleaning, hand hygiene and allergen control are separate control measures. A 75°C cook cannot compensate for failures in those measures.
2. List the immediate actions you would take at 12:30, in priority order.
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At 12:30 the priority is to stop further contamination and protect customers:
- Stop using the shared tongs and the green board for raw chicken; obtain the red board or a dedicated raw tray and separate tongs.
- Take the hand-wash basin out of food preparation use; wash hands, then clean and sanitise the basin and the salad-rinse jug. Discard any salad that was rinsed there.
- Discard the open mayonnaise jar and any sandwich made with the tuna spoon; use a clean jar and a dedicated spoon.
- Clean and sanitise the hot-hold unit, tongs, boards and benches; check and correct the hot-hold to at least 63°C, or time-limit the holding.
- Check the customer's sandwich and remake it with controlled ingredients.
- Record the incident, the food discarded, and the actions taken. Brief staff at the next shift.
3. What root causes and longer-term controls would prevent recurrence?
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Root causes are likely to include equipment shortages (missing red board), layout (one basin serving two incompatible uses), high staff turnover, weak supervision and incomplete follow-up of the earlier audit findings. Longer-term controls:
- Provide enough colour-coded boards, tongs and containers, and store raw and ready-to-eat equipment separately.
- Install a dedicated hand-wash basin that is not used for food preparation, or reorganise the counter so hand washing and salad rinsing cannot conflict.
- Retrain all staff on separation, hand hygiene and allergen cross-contact, with short refresher sessions for new starters.
- Add a daily opening check for board colour, tongs and basin use, and a supervisor observation during peak service.
- Track non-conformities and verify corrective actions through internal audits, cleaning swabs or ATP checks.
- Review the layout and workflow so raw chicken and ready-to-eat food do not share a path.