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Safe Food Handling Protocol Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:«I lost a 12 kg pork leg because somebody left it thawing on the counter overnight. I have nothing written down and a health inspection is due in three weeks. I need the temperature control protocol, which is where it hurts most.»
① The step's card
⚠️ Your country's food-safety regulation overrides every figure in this document. Those below are commonly used international references; check them against your local rules before putting them up in the kitchen.
| Step | Temperature control |
| Limits | Refrigeration < 4 °C · Freezing < −18 °C · Hot holding > 60 °C |
| Danger zone | 5 °C to 60 °C — daily accumulated maximum: 4 hours |
| Instrument | Probe thermometer with a steel tip, ±1 °C accuracy |
| If you have none | A digital probe costs under 0.1 % of one month's sales. Meanwhile: the chiller's fixed thermometer reads the AIR, not the product — and write «no product reading» on the sheet, which is more honest than inventing a figure |
| Frequency | Open and close, and always after a power cut |
And one piece of arithmetic that reorders the conversation: the 12 kg leg you lost is worth several times the thermometer that would have prevented it.
② The step by step (8 steps)
- Before opening, calibrate the probe: iced water must read 0 °C ±1. If it does not, do not measure with it.
- Measure the product, not the air: put the probe into the centre of the largest piece in each chiller.
- Log the figure with the time on the sheet. No figure written, no measurement.
- If refrigeration reads between 4 and 8 °C: reduce the load, check the door seals and measure again in 30 minutes.
- If it reads above 8 °C, measure the centre of the product: that is where it is decided, not on the display.
- Count from when: if the power cut was last night and nobody knows the hour, count it as if the 4 hours had passed.
- Clean the probe between chillers. A probe going from raw to ready is cross-contamination with a thermometer.
- At close, repeat and sign. The signature is what turns the sheet into evidence.
None of them says «check it is okay». All of them say what is measured, with what, and against which number.
③ The record sheet and the discard branch
Temperature sheet — filled twice a day, lives in the kitchen folder, kept 12 months.
| Date | Time | Unit | Air temp. | Product temp. | Deviation | Action taken | Sign |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27/08 | 07:40 | Chiller 1 | 3 °C | 3 °C | No | — | JC |
The exit branch, written BEFORE it happens:
| Recovered | Discarded |
|---|---|
| Product below 8 °C and out under 2 hours: used today, not tomorrow | Product above 8 °C for more than 4 accumulated hours |
| Frozen with surface frost and a still-hard centre: cooked straight away | Frozen that was thawed and refrozen |
| Hot cooked food that dropped below 60 °C under 2 hours ago: reheated to 74 °C once | Anything with changed smell, colour or texture, whatever the figure says |
Who authorises binning: the head chef, no cap, logged with a photo. A protocol that orders binning without naming a signer is not followed: nobody wants to be the one who lost the 12 kilos.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.