It is important to keep food stored correctly in order to avoid contamination. Following a few simple tips can reduce financial losses from food waste and help your kitchen run smoothly.
Meat should be stored on the lowest shelves
Keeping meat on the lowest shelves of your catering fridge means that spillages or leaks are much easier to clean up. Most importantly, leaking meat juices could be potentially hazardous if they contaminate other food, so storing meat lower down means that they cannot drip onto other food.
Make sure there are gaps between items
In order to function correctly, air needs to circulate within a fridge, so that there are no areas of higher or lower temperatures. Ideally, there should be three to six inches between the sides of the fridge and the food within it.
Leaving space around the contents of the fridge is one of the key recommendations from the Food Standards Agency.
Don’t store food on the floor of the fridge
Moisture and other contaminants can collect on the floor of the fridge, so it is important that food is never kept there. Making sure your fridge has sufficient shelving will avoid this problem and there are a wide range of commercial fridges available on the market, such as those available at https://www.fridgefreezerdirect.co.uk/catering-equipment.
Delicate produce needs to be stored away from fans
The fans in commercial fridges are strong enough to potentially damage some food kept within them. For example, fresh greens and berries can be vulnerable to damage.
Always follow FIFO (First In, First Out)
Food safety depends on using items within their use-by dates, so it makes sense to use older food first before it goes out of date. When organising your fridge, put new items to the back, so that older food is closest to hand when you take things out to use.
6) Clearly label everything
This may seem obvious, but it is impossible to ensure that food is used within its date if it is not clear what that date is. If there are multiple people using a kitchen, then clear labelling makes sure everyone has the information they need. Labelling the shelves in a fridge helps to remind people where items should go and also helps to highlight which items may be running low.