Overview
At Johnsons we know that sound food safety practice starts long before the goods arrive at your receiving dock or back door. It starts with selecting reputable and responsible suppliers who make food safety and quality a priority throughout every phase of their operation before their products are delivered to your kitchen. There is now a growing consumer conscience around the traceability of raw materials used in the manufacture and processing of food products since food scares such as BSE and the Foot and Mouth epidemic have become the centre of media focus. Being able to demonstrate the “providence” of a food product e.g. which ingredients, from which batch, and from which supplier were used to produce the goods provided to which customer, instils greater trust in the end consumer and can ultimately boost sales.
Vehicles used for the delivery of food can be considered an extension of the food premises and so should be specifically designed for transporting food and must be kept clean. If carrying high risk or perishable food the vehicle should be refrigerated. Every food business should have procedures for accepting or rejecting food deliveries. The key points are to ensure that the food is fresh at the correct temperature and contained in clean undamaged packaging.
Before products are ready for uploading it is critical that you have a robust food safety system in place. Cooking may not make tainted food safe, so unsafe food delivered is at risk of being unsafe food when cooked. Good practices must include careful inspections of all deliveries and monitoring and recording temperatures of perishable foods. Checking temperatures of food shipments as they arrive at your business is as critical to food safety management as cooking and cooling temperatures.
Reasons for rejecting a food consignment:
- High risk or perishable foods delivered at a danger zone temperature
- Frozen food thawed or partly thawed
- Packaging damaged, dirty or wet
- Cans dented, rusty or leaking
- Signs of mould or other forms of spoilage (other food matter)
- An expired date mark – food past the use by or best before date.
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- Set specific receiving hours so deliveries are made during non peak times.
- Carefully
inspect products to ensure proper labelling, safe temperatures,
acceptable code dates and that original packaging is intact.
- Check fruit and vegetables thoroughly not just the items you can see at first viewing.
- Refuse any product that is in question.
- Record temperature checks of all perishable items on arrival.
- Refrigerated food should be stored at between (0ºc and 5ºC).
- Frozen food stuff should be received with an internal case temperature of (-22ºc to -18ºC).
- Keep raw meats, poultry and seafood separated from other food at all times.
- Use food grade food containers when repacking dry goods, air tight lids, labelled and date marked.
- Properly store all perishable products within 15 minutes of being unloaded and inspected to ensure safe food temperatures.
- Keep all food products covered and stored off the floor on shelves or pallets.
- Use first in first out (FIFO) principle when storing newly delivered foods for proper food rotation.
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