Cooking & Hot Holding Temperature Checks

Food needs to be cooked and held at safe temperatures to prevent health hazards (and lawsuits).

Cooking and hot holding temperature logs can help to eliminate any food safety risks and reduce food waste. Saving you money and protecting your customers and business.

Plus having a secure record of your checks means you can prove to an EHO that you’re following the correct HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) procedures. And hit that 5* hygiene rating!

Hot-holding temperature log

Hot holding is the process of keeping cooked food at a safe temperature before service. Once cooked, food should be held above 63°C to prevent bacteria growth.

The following tasks can help you check and log your hot holding temperatures:

• Probe the food at the start and end of service and at least every 2 hours to ensure the hot holding temperature is above 63°C.
• Record the temperature of the food with the lowest core temperature.
• Reheat food thoroughly until the core temperature is 75°C or above and then add it to the hot holding equipment.
• Check food temperatures at least twice during the day. And use 5-6 different dishes to probe.
• Keep thermometers clean, and before probing food, always clean and disinfect the probe with probe wipes.
  

These repetitive tasks need to be carried out regularly throughout the day.

How Trail can help

Before you let out a big sigh, check out how Trail can help you simplify and speed up your processes:

• ‍Digitise all that paperwork. Maintain a complete digital record and cut down on the repetitive data entry. Just simple bite-sized tasks, all in one app.
• Streamline food safety practices. Temperature logs are woven into your team’s working day alongside other tasks. Everyone knows what to do and when to do it.
• Corrective action. Trail automatically prompts your teams if a temperature is outside the normal range so you know when the product must be sold or thrown away.
• Photographic evidence. Whether it’s a photo to document corrective action or to prove the recordings were taken. Remove any doubt with hard evidence. And save your business from any potential lawsuits (and headaches).
• Digital audit log. Prove to management and auditors that your team is up-to-date with digital audit logs and report any problems or actions taken.‍

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