Fully cooked chicken zone decision
Hi everyone,
I need some help with our project. We are going to make and sell fully cooked chicken products , However we will be still advising consumer to cook the product before consuming.
I cannot make sure about high care/high risk/low area decisions in terms of BRC requirements. Can you please advise me on this ?
Many thanks in advance.
It is important to remember that advising a customer cook a product or reheat a product is very different to mandatory cooking being required.
The area can be classified as low-risk if there are cooking instructions (i.e. the product cannot be eaten unless fully cooked), but cannot be classified as this if the instructions are reheating instructions.
hi,
You can ask customer to re-heat chicken, as it is if fully cooked, then is a high risk product.
;)
Thank you for the answers :) It will not be Ready to eat or ready to re-heat. Customers have to cook the product fully. So Do we still high risk area ?
Cooking something that has been previously "fully cooked", is reheating it...
Hi everyone,
I need some help with our project. We are going to make and sell fully cooked chicken products , However we will be still advising consumer to cook the product before consuming.
I cannot make sure about high care/high risk/low area decisions in terms of BRC requirements. Can you please advise me on this ?
Many thanks in advance.
What is your advice for consumers to cook the product based on?
i.e. is this necessary for microbiological control, or based on organoleptics?
The BRCGS standard has a definition of "ready to heat" - see footnote 9 in Appendix 2, page 143 of the issue 9 standard:
Ready-to-heat food products are designed to be safe to be consumed without the need for a full cook; the reheating of the product is intended to make it more palatable and is not a microbiological kill step.
See also the final paragraph in the "High risk (chilled and frozen)" section of this same appendix:
It should be noted that where the product has cooking instructions for the consumer that are equivalent to a full cook, then the product may be low risk. In these situations the site is expected to have a full validation which the auditor can refer to, demonstrating that the cooking instructions are appropriate and that the product will achieve the correct temperature/time when the cooking instructions are used (See Part II, clause 5.2.4)
I think it's worth reviewing the whole of appendix 2 and clarifying internally exactly where the product sits within this. If it's a cooked chicken product that consumers are reheating (as defined in the first quote, above) rather than cooking, then it is effectively treated the same as an RTE food and your final production zone is very probably going to be high risk. But if consumers are genuinely "cooking" (see footnote 7 on page 142) then this might not be the case, but you will of course also then need validation for the cooking instructions you provide to consumers.