This section has advice on the '4 Cs' of food hygiene - cleaning, cooking, chilling and cross-contamination.
This page gives some basic practical tips for caterers on chilling.
For easy to use guidance on chilling controls, required as part of a written food safety management system for your business, download the Safer Food, Better Business Pack.
Some foods need to be kept chilled to keep them safe, for example food with a Use By date, food that you have cooked and will not serve immediately, or other ready-to-eat food such as prepared salads. If these foods are not properly chilled, bacteria can grow and make people ill.
Chilling - Safety Tips for Catering Businesses
Put food that needs to be chilled in the fridge straight away
Cool cooked food as quickly as possible and then put it in the fridge
You can make food cool more quickly by dividing it into smaller amounts and placing it in shallow dishes
Keep chilled food out of the fridge for the shortest time possible during preparation
Do not overload the fridge
Check chilled food on delivery to make sure it is cold
Check that food that needs to be chilled is put in the fridge as soon as it arrives
Check regularly that your fridge and display units are cold enough
Use a fridge thermometer to check the temperature of your fridge regularly. The coldest part of the fridge should be between 0°C and 5°C (32°F and 41°F)
Check the time between cooking food and chilling it. This should not be longer than one to two hours
Chilled food must be kept below 8°C
When you are serving or displaying chilled food you can keep it above 8°C for a maximum of four hours. You can only do this once. Then you must throw away the food or keep it chilled until it is used
In this section there is also guidance for butchers, small caterers and retailers on safety requirements for vacuum packing chilled foods.
