10 replies to this topic

[deepti]

Dear All,

I am working in a Hotel. We are implementing HACCP in our hotel.

My question is, when we are deciding the critical limits like Cooking temperature, reheat temperature, food storage temperature, what reference do we need to give?
For Example:
1. When we say the minimum cooking temperature is 75 deg cent, do we need to validate that the food cooked at 75 deg cent is safe for consumption.
2. When we store the food at 5 deg cent or below we give 3 days’ shelf life to food, do we need to validate or prove it? If yes how?

Every hotel uses the same critical limits globally, but how do we prove that our system is right?


Regards

Deepti Rai

[GMO]

Dear All,

I am working in a Hotel. We are implementing HACCP in our hotel.

My question is, when we are deciding the critical limits like Cooking temperature, reheat temperature, food storage temperature, what reference do we need to give?
For Example:
1. When we say the minimum cooking temperature is 75 deg cent, do we need to validate that the food cooked at 75 deg cent is safe for consumption.
2. When we store the food at 5 deg cent or below we give 3 days’ shelf life to food, do we need to validate or prove it? If yes how?

Every hotel uses the same critical limits globally, but how do we prove that our system is right?


Regards

Deepti Rai

Yes you do. Part of the reason is in your question because 75 degrees might be well accepted but importantly how long is that temperature held? Not sure?

The way you find out is by searching in the literature or in food safety reference books. Note that the figures you will find aren't necessarily for the food you're cooking but in catering they're a starting point. Ideally you'd do some micro testing to prove it's effective as part of your validation stage. I understand that might not be practicable in your setting though.

On question two, in a factory environment, this would be validated by microbiological testing. This may or may not be practical for your foods. It would help to know what you're producing. The thing is, in a catering environment with no high / low risk segregation, you may not have as good a shelf life as a high risk factory. So you could use literature information but it really depends on how good your controls are in your kitchens. One thing you can do though is do some organoleptic work over the 3 days and prove quality doesn't deteriorate over that time.



In answer to my question earlier, it should be held for 26 seconds. This is because it will reduce Listeria in the food to a safe level (and other vegetative pathogens, Listeria is considered one of the tougher vegetative pathogens to kill.) How many of your staff make sure they probe the food for half a minute and ensure 75 degrees is held for that time?

[Charles.C]

Dear GMO,

26sec.? 10% safety factor for inaccurate probers? Or different data source maybe ?

http://www.ifsqn.com...dpost__p__11011

 L.mono inactivation by heat.png   33.44KB   87 downloads
(Blue Book, app.4, Table A3)

(I guess the Americans will select Salmonella.sp instead)

Rgds / Charles.C

[GMO]

My source was the CFA best practice for production of chilled food. Kind of proved my point though; you need to find a source you're comfortable with the accuracy of but you definitely need a source of information and to decide the time you need to hold the temperature for.

[bala_s]

Dear Deepti,


Attaching FDA guide for your reference.
You can do cooking validaiton study using L. Monocytogenesis which is more heat resistent bacteria and most of the food cooking process time and temperature is validated using this bacteria. USA customer will ask for salmonella inactivation report, like charles mentioned. but you can do cooking validation with L.m which cover all bacterial (normal cooking)
depending on the prodcut size and initial p temperature, cooking time will varry at particular cooking temperature.

regarding chill storage, please see attachment. minimum\optimimum \maximum environmental conditions are mentionsed for number of pathogenic bacterial.


regards/bala

Attached Files

•  time temperature guid FDA hazard guide 2011.pdf   119.47KB   395 downloads

[Gourav]

Dear All,

I am working in a Hotel. We are implementing HACCP in our hotel.

My question is, when we are deciding the critical limits like Cooking temperature, reheat temperature, food storage temperature, what reference do we need to give?
For Example:
1. When we say the minimum cooking temperature is 75 deg cent, do we need to validate that the food cooked at 75 deg cent is safe for consumption.
2. When we store the food at 5 deg cent or below we give 3 days’ shelf life to food, do we need to validate or prove it? If yes how?

Every hotel uses the same critical limits globally, but how do we prove that our system is right?


Regards

Deepti Rai

Hi Deepti,
Let me try to answer your questions: -

1. When we say the minimum cooking temperature is 75 deg cent, do we need to validate that the food cooked at 75 deg cent is safe for consumption.
Yes you need to validate but what. There are enough reliable data / literature available to prove that core temperature min 75 deg c is sufficient to ensure food safety but there is always minimum time limit attached to it. Setting this minimum cooking time would be the validation in your case. At the end of the exercise you might say that 75 Deg C for minimum 30 secs is adeqquate to ensure food safety.
This validation data is proved with the help of microbial analysis to shoe that time-temp combination selcted is enough to bring the mocrobes to safe lelevl. No pathogens present and TPC within a limit.
Based on this data you would design the cooking process; so that cooking is long enough to ensure 75 Deg C for the minimum time decided in your validation.



2. When we store the food at 5 deg cent or below we give 3 days’ shelf life to food, do we need to validate or prove it? If yes how?
Yes; this would also require validation. If you see a shelf life of three days - You can design your study as follows: -
Microbial and organoleptic analysis every 8 hours for first 48 hours and then may be at every 4 hours. Depending upon teh results yo may further fine tune the schedule.
At the end of study you might come up with the groups of products - out of then some have a shelf of 36hrs, some have 48 hrs, some 60 hrs etc. Even this difference in shelf lives is important in your kind of round the clock operation where guest is served fresh food.

Thanks

Regards

Gourav

[George @ Safefood 360°]

Hi Deepti

The previous posters are correct. In the case of a hotel or food service operation you will need to reference some reliable sources to support and validate your critical limits. In Ireland the Government's National Standards Authority have published a series of Food Standards for food catering and service that give very clear guidence and are designed to help businesses in this area. (They really take the work out of developing HACCP plans ) The I.S. 340 is the standard used in Catering. Temperatures, times etc are provided for all the main preparation activities. The guys have already provided you with some good references...but a copy of the above would be helpful.

Just on micro testing for CCP validation. This is not practical for catering and food service establishments on a routine basis. Nor does it IMO provide any useful information for CCP validation. Testing food after cooking for example, for microorganisms is good for verifying the product is of microbiologically good standard but it does not 'validate' the CCP.

To validate the CCP using micro-testing you need to know for certain that a specific pathogen e.g. salmonella is present in the food prior to cooking and then test post cooking to confirm the CCP is capable of killing the bug. This is called Challenge Testing. In food processing plants cooking validation usually involves validation of the cooking equipment. All very expensive and not all that reasonable for small food service establishments so go with some good reference sources.

[Dr Ajay Shah]

I totally agree with the information and comments made by George Howlett and they are very valid points.

Regards



Ajay Shah

[deepti]

Thanks a lot to everyone!

I have found a document attached below, from "National Food Service Management Institute, The university of Mississippi" . Can I give reference of this document for the Critical limits?
As we donot have our internal laboratory ready, so I cannot conduct the testings, therefore I need to rely on the literature available.

Thanks

Deepti Rai

[deepti]

Thanks a lot to everyone!

I have found a document attached below, from "National Food Service Management Institute, The university of Mississippi" . Can I give reference of this document for the Critical limits?
As we donot have our internal laboratory ready, so I cannot conduct the testings, therefore I need to rely on the literature available.

Thanks

Deepti Rai

[Gourav]

For validation challenge study is required.
Thanks
Gourav