Rules for self-service foods
- Supervise the display when customers are accessing food from the display.
- Quickly remove the food if someone has contaminated the food.
- Food must be kept under 5 °C or above 60 °C to avoid the temperature danger zone.
- Always use a clean and sanitised thermometer to check the temperature at the centre of the food.
- Never use a pie warmer or bain-marie to heat up cold food. They are only designed to keep hot food hot.
- Throw away ’single-use’ items after using them once, including gloves, straws, paper towels, cups and plates.
- Refresh food displays with completely fresh batches of food. Food poisoning bacteria can be transferred from an old batch of food to a new batch if the container has not been cleaned properly first.
- Never re-use any self-service food.
- Make sure that each food item or dish has its own serving utensil.
- Ensure that the handles of the serving utensils do not touch the food as bacteria can be transferred from the customers hand to the utensil to the food.
- Always remove utensils that have become contaminated from service and replace with a clean and sanitised utensil. This is especially important to prevent the transfer of allergens from one food to another.