Soup held at 48°C at a weekend market stall
At a weekend market stall, pumpkin soup was reheated at 9:15am to 78°C and put into a bain-marie at 9:30am. At 11:30am a probe reads 48°C at the surface and 55°C deeper in the pot. Twelve portions have been sold since 9:30am. The generator has been surging, the lid has been off for serving, and no one has logged a temperature since 9:30am. There is a second, untouched pot in the chilly bin at 3°C, and about 30 portions' worth of soup left in the bain-marie. The stallholder says, 'It is still warm - just turn the gas up and it will be fine,' and wants to keep selling until 2:00pm. The next-door stall has a thermometer you could borrow. Customers are queuing and one has already complained the soup was 'only lukewarm'.
1. What is your decision about the soup in the bain-marie at 11:30am, and why?
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Stop selling it, and discard what is left in the bain-marie.
- Hot holding must be 60°C or above. At 48–55°C the soup is in the danger zone, and 12 portions have already been sold.
- What you can prove: reheated to 78°C at 9:15am, in the bain-marie from 9:30am. No temperature log since. So the time below 60°C is somewhere between 'just now' and more than two hours.
- The customer complaint that the soup was 'only lukewarm' is evidence it dropped earlier than you assumed. That pushes you to the conservative end.
- Under the 2-hour/4-hour approach: less than 2 hours in the zone and you could reheat to 75°C and hot hold or sell; 2–4 hours and you could sell immediately but not return it to the chilly bin or hold it further; more than 4 hours and you must discard.
- With no log and a complaint, you cannot demonstrate even the 2-hour band. The defensible call is to stop service, discard the remaining bain-marie soup, and record why.
- Check the untouched pot in the chilly bin: 3°C is fine. If you borrow the neighbouring thermometer, check it at the ice point first - an unverified reading is not evidence.
2. How do you handle the rest of the service and the second pot of soup?
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Recover safely with the untouched pot, and keep records.
- Do not top up the bain-marie with the cold pot - mixing old and new makes the whole batch unverifiable.
- Discard the bain-marie soup into a waste container away from the stall, and record the approximate volume and time.
- Reheat the second pot, or part of it, to 75°C or above, stirring so there are no cold spots, then hold at 60°C or above.
- Pre-heat the bain-marie with hot water before putting soup in, keep the lid on between serves, stir regularly, and check the temperature with a probe at least hourly, logging it.
- Sell within a defined window; anything left after 4 hours in the zone is discarded, not chilled and saved.
- If the burner or generator fails again, either sell immediately and stop, or discard. Do not hold food you cannot keep hot.
- Make sure the probe is calibrated, or at least checked at the ice point.
3. What do you change so the stall can safely sell hot soup next market day?
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Prevention and honesty about capacity
- Log every hour: time, temperature, action taken.
- Use smaller batches more often rather than one big pot held for five hours.
- Cover between serves, and only take the lid off to serve.
- Pre-heat the bain-marie, service the burner, carry a spare gas bottle, and test the generator before the market.
- Write a simple procedure and brief staff on what 60°C means and what to do if the temperature drops.
- Record the discard and the customer complaint, and report both to the organiser and the business owner. If anyone reports illness, keep the records and contact the public health unit.
- Review whether the stall can safely hold hot food with the equipment it has - if it cannot, change the menu to items made to order or held cold.