The Cool Room That Ran Warm Overnight

Key calculation: the cool room was above 5°C from roughly 1:00 am to 6:00 am - about 5 hours - and reached 12°C. That is a long time in the danger zone, so treat all product as potentially unsafe unless there is a specific reason it is not.

1. Sliced cooked chicken breast - DISCARD. Cooked, moist, high-protein, sliced (large surface area). It has spent ~5 hours above 5°C, reaching 12°C. Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella are the key concerns, and Listeria grows at refrigeration temperatures and is a serious risk for pregnant, elderly and immunocompromised customers. Do not sell, do not recook for sale.

2. Sliced salami - DISCARD (or assess with extreme caution). Cured, but sliced salami is not a shelf-stable product once sliced; it is a ready-to-eat product with a large surface area. Listeria and Staph. aureus are concerns. The safe default is discard. If the business wants to argue otherwise, it needs documented evidence (e.g. product-specific challenge data) - which it will not have. Discard.

3. Coleslaw in a sealed tub - DISCARD. Sealed does not mean safe; the tub was in the warm room. Coleslaw is high-moisture, RTE, and typically contains mayonnaise/dressing. Listeria is the key concern. Discard.

4. Sliced cheese - DISCARD. Again RTE, sliced, high surface area. Listeria is the key concern. Discard.

5. Raw chicken thighs - DISCARD. Raw poultry is a Campylobacter and Salmonella risk. It will be cooked, which kills vegetative cells, but 5 hours at up to 12°C allows significant growth, and cross-contamination risk in handling is high. The conservative and correct decision is discard. Do not sell.

Bottom line: all five products are discarded. The store manager's 'sell what we can' plan is not defensible. The cost of discarding is far lower than the cost of a Listeria outbreak in a supermarket deli.

Why 'cook it and sell it hot' is not acceptable here

• Cooking kills vegetative bacteria, but it does not destroy heat-stable toxins (e.g. Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin, Bacillus cereus emetic toxin) that may have formed during 5 hours in the danger zone. You cannot tell by look, smell or taste whether toxin is present.
• The raw chicken has also been in a warm room with other product; the handling and cross-contamination risk is high.
• Selling it as hot food moves a known-risk product into a ready-to-eat format for customers, including vulnerable ones. That is exactly the wrong direction.
• The correct principle: when in doubt, throw it out. Documented disposal is the defensible action.

Records and corrective actions

1. Corrective action record: date/time detected, temperature readings and logger download, products and quantities discarded, reason, who authorised disposal, signature.
2. Disposal record: confirm product is disposed of so it cannot re-enter the food chain (e.g. into a locked bin, or recorded as waste).
3. Temperature log: attach the data logger printout; note the time the fault began and the time the unit was restored.
4. Maintenance record: log the compressor failure, the repair booking, and the repair completion. Get the unit back to ≤5°C and verify with a calibrated probe before restocking.
5. Restock only after verification: do not refill the cool room until it has held ≤5°C for a confirmed period.
6. Review the monitoring system: the logger worked, but nobody was alerted overnight. Add an alarm/alert (SMS or audible) so a failure is caught within an hour, not at 7:00 am.
7. Review stock levels: holding 5 hours of stock in one unit increases the loss; consider splitting high-risk RTE stock across units.
8. Notify the store manager/owner in writing of the decision and the reasons.

What to say to the manager: 'Cooking doesn't remove toxin. We can't tell by looking. The only safe call is to bin it and fix the alarm so this doesn't happen again.'