Receiving, Storing, Cleaning, and Sanitizing

Approved Suppliers

All food must come from an approved, reputable supplier, meaning one that has been inspected and meets local, state, and federal law. Food from a neighbor's garden, a friend who went fishing, a home kitchen, or an unlicensed vendor has no inspected history and cannot be served.

This is one of the five CDC risk factors, and it is also the reason your operation will not let you bring in food from home to sell.

Receiving a Delivery

Receiving is the last chance to stop a problem before it gets into the building. Inspect deliveries immediately. Do not leave a pallet on the dock while you deal with something else, because that is time in the danger zone.

Check five things on every delivery:

1. Temperature
2. Packaging
3. Dates
4. Appearance
5. Odor

Receiving temperatures:

Signs that frozen food thawed and was refrozen, all of which mean reject the delivery:

• Large ice crystals on the product or inside the packaging
• Water stains or discoloration on the box
• Frozen liquid pooled at the bottom of the case

Reject a delivery for any of these:

• Temperature out of range
• Torn, punctured, water-stained, or damp packaging
• Bloated or leaking cans, or cans with dents on the seam or rim
• Broken or missing tamper-evident seals
• A damaged vacuum seal on a vacuum-packed item
• Past its use-by date
• Wrong color, slimy texture, or a bad smell
• Signs of pests
• Shellfish arriving without their shellfish identification tags

Fish should have bright clear eyes, firm flesh that springs back, red gills, and a mild sea smell. Dull sunken eyes, mushy flesh, or an ammonia smell means reject it.

Exam Tip: "Frozen solid with no evidence of thawing and refreezing" is the phrase to look for. Ice crystals on a case of frozen shrimp means reject the delivery, not put it in the freezer.

Storage Temperatures

Check refrigerator and freezer temperatures at least twice a day. Use a hanging or built-in thermometer placed in the warmest part of the unit, which is usually near the door.

Storage Order in the Cooler

Store food from top to bottom in order of its minimum internal cooking temperature, with the lowest cooking temperature on top and the highest on the bottom. Ready-to-eat food always goes on the top shelf.

Why it works. If raw chicken drips down, it lands on a drip tray or the floor of the cooler, not on the salad. If ready-to-eat salad were on the bottom, chicken juice would land on food that has no cooking step left to make it safe again.

A memory aid, from the top down: Ready-to-eat, Seafood, Beef and pork whole cuts, Ground meat, Poultry.

Exam Tip: Cooler storage order is one of the most reliably tested topics on the exam. Poultry on the bottom, ready-to-eat on top, every single time.

General Storage Rules

1. 6 inches off the floor. All food and single-use items sit at least 6 inches (15 cm) above the floor, so you can clean underneath and pests have nowhere to hide.
2. Chemicals go below food, never above. Ideally in a separate area entirely.
3. Cover, wrap, or seal everything. Uncovered food catches drips, dust, and pests.
4. Label containers with the common name of the food, plus a date where date marking applies.
5. Use food-grade containers. A bucket from the hardware store is not a food container.
6. Never reuse a single-use container to store food. Deli tubs, takeout boxes, produce clamshells, and plastic jugs are designed to be used once. They scratch and craze in a warewasher, the plastic holds residues, and a container you cannot clean reliably cannot be sanitized reliably. Washing out yesterday's deli tubs for today's mise en place feels thrifty. It is a violation.
7. Never put chemicals in an empty food container, and never put food, utensils, linens, or single-use items in an empty chemical container.
8. Keep unwashed produce separate from ready-to-eat food. Unwashed fruit and vegetables carry soil and whatever was on them in the field. They must be stored and prepped away from ready-to-eat items, and they must not touch any surface that has been exposed to raw meat, seafood, or poultry.
9. Do not overload the unit. Blocked airflow means a cooler that cannot hold temperature.

Exam Tip: Two easy points here: food is stored 6 inches off the floor, and single-use containers must not be reused to store food.

FIFO

FIFO stands for First In, First Out. When a delivery comes in, put the new stock behind or underneath the stock already there, and move the older stock to the front. Use the oldest product first.

Do it every time you restock, in every storage area: the walk-in, the freezer, dry storage, reach-ins, and the line. Check dates as you rotate, and pull anything expired.

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Cleaning Is Not Sanitizing

These are two different jobs and the exam tests the difference.

You cannot sanitize a dirty surface. Food residue and grease block the sanitizer from reaching the surface, and food debris chews up chemical sanitizers. Cleaning always comes first.

A food-contact surface is anything food touches, or anything food can drip, drain, or splash onto: cutting boards, knives, prep tables, mixer bowls, slicer blades, tongs, and the insides of storage containers.

The Five Steps for a Food-Contact Surface

1. Scrape off leftover food
2. Wash with detergent and warm water
3. Rinse with clean water
4. Sanitize with heat or an approved chemical
5. Air dry

Never towel dry after sanitizing. A cloth puts bacteria straight back onto the surface you just sanitized.

Skipping a step breaks the whole process. Skip the wash and the residue blocks the sanitizer. Skip the rinse and the detergent can neutralize the sanitizer. Towel dry and you undo the sanitizing.

Exam Tip: The order is scrape, wash, rinse, sanitize, air dry. Sanitizing always comes after rinsing, and air drying is always last.

The Three-Compartment Sink

The same five steps, in the sink:

1. Scrape the item into the trash or disposal
2. Sink 1: wash in detergent and water at 110F (43C) or hotter
3. Sink 2: rinse in clean water
4. Sink 3: sanitize, either in hot water at 171F (77C) for at least 30 seconds or in a chemical sanitizer solution at the correct concentration and contact time
5. Air dry on a clean drainboard or rack

Change the water in any compartment when it gets dirty, greasy, or cold. Check the sanitizer with test strips.

Chemical Sanitizers

ppm means parts per million. You do not calculate it. You measure it with a test strip and read the color against the chart on the container.

More is not better. Too weak and the sanitizer does not kill enough pathogens. Too strong and it becomes a chemical contamination hazard and can corrode equipment.

Four things affect whether a sanitizer works: concentration, water temperature, contact time, and how dirty the water is. All four have to be right.

Exam Tip: Use test strips to check sanitizer concentration. You cannot tell by looking, smelling, or tasting. If a question describes a correct concentration but water that is too cold, the sanitizer is not effective.

When to Clean and Sanitize a Food-Contact Surface

Four triggers:

1. After each use
2. Before working with a different type of food, for example moving from raw chicken to vegetables
3. After 4 hours of continuous use with the same food, even if the surface looks clean
4. Any time contamination happens, such as a sneeze, a chemical splash, or a dropped item

Exam Tip: The 4 hours of continuous use rule is heavily tested. A prep table in constant use must be cleaned and sanitized at the 4-hour mark whether or not it looks dirty.

Warewashing Machines

• High-temperature machines sanitize with heat. The final rinse must reach 180F (82C), or 165F (74C) for a stationary rack single-temperature machine.
• Chemical-sanitizing machines run cooler and sanitize with a chemical in the final rinse.
• Load racks correctly so water reaches every surface, do not overload them, and let items air dry before stacking.
• Check the machine's gauges and the sanitizer level at the start of each shift.

Storing Chemicals and Cleaning Tools

• Store chemicals in a separate area, away from food, utensils, linens, and single-use items.
• If food and chemicals must share a room, chemicals go on the lowest shelf.
• Keep chemicals in their original labeled containers. If you transfer a chemical into a spray bottle, that bottle must be labeled with the common name of the chemical.
• Follow the manufacturer's instructions and your operation's safety data sheets.
• Store mops, brooms, and buckets away from food areas, hung up so they can dry.
• Empty and clean the mop bucket after use. A bucket of dirty water left overnight breeds bacteria and attracts pests.

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