Food Safety, Hygiene and Sanitation
Food Safety, Hygiene and Sanitation covers the microbiology behind foodborne illness, personal and environmental hygiene, temperature control, cleaning and disinfection, and the HACCP logic examiners use to test corrective actions. Expect questions that describe a scenario and ask what should have been done, and when.
Core rules
- Bacteria need food, moisture, favourable acidity (pH above 4.6), temperature, time and, for some, oxygen. Controlling any single factor slows or stops growth.
- Danger zone is 5–60 °C: hold hot food above 63 °C, cold food at 5 °C or below.
- High-risk foods include cooked meat, dairy, eggs, seafood, cooked rice and cooked pasta.
- Two-stage cooling: 63 °C to 21 °C within 2 hours, then 21 °C to 5 °C within a further 4 hours.
- Reheat once only, to 74 °C core within 2 hours; never reheat twice.
- Handwashing: wet hands, soap, lather 20 seconds including nails and wrists, rinse, dry with a disposable towel.
- Colour-coded boards (follow your kitchen's chart): red raw meat, blue raw fish, yellow cooked meat, green salad and fruit, brown vegetables, white dairy and bakery.
- Cleaning has six stages: pre-clean, main clean, rinse, disinfect at the stated contact time, final rinse, dry.
- Ready-to-eat food is never handled with bare hands.
Worked example
A cook step is monitored as a CCP for chicken. The critical limit is a core temperature of 74 °C held for at least 15 seconds. A tray probes at 68 °C. Corrective action: return it to the oven, re-probe the thickest part of three separate pieces, hold until every reading exceeds 74 °C, record the times and readings, and keep the batch on hold. If the batch had already left the kitchen it must be recalled, not simply re-cooked and re-served.
Traps that cost marks
- Judging doneness by colour or clock time instead of a calibrated probe.
- Wiping a board with a damp cloth instead of washing, disinfecting and air-drying.
- Tasting with a spoon and returning it to the pot.
- Trusting the fridge display temperature rather than the product temperature.