Subject: Date Marking Raw and Ready-To-Eat Potentially Hazardous Foods (Time and Temperature Controls for Safe Food)

What will be done and who will do it?

New employees must:

• Review this procedure.
• Be trained by a team leader.
• Sign the training checklist.

All employees must:

• Label foods with the product name, the day or date, and time it is prepared or opened.
• Label raw meat & poultry or ready-to-eat (RTE), potentially hazardous foods that are prepared on-site and held for more than 24 hours.
• Label any processed, raw meat & poultry or RTE items when opened, if they are to be held for more than 24 hours.
• Refrigerate all raw meat & poultry and RTE potentially hazardous foods at 41 °F or below.
• Serve or discard refrigerated RTE potentially hazardous foods within 7 days (if the product was vacuum sealed - 14 days).
• For vacuum sealed foods calculate the 14-day time period by counting only the days that the food has been in the vacuum sealed package.
• Indicate with a separate label the date prepared, the date frozen, and the date thawed of any refrigerated, raw meat/poultry, and RTE items.
• Refer to SOP - Cross Contamination Prevention, SOP - Controlling Time and Temperature During Preparation, and SOP - Processes and Controls for Food Storage and Receiving.

Who will make sure it's done and how?

• Team leaders are expected to continually model appropriate date marking practices for employees.
• Team leaders will check refrigerators/coolers daily to verify that foods are date marked and that foods exceeding the 14-day time period are not being used or stored.

How should problems be fixed?

• Team leaders must immediately train and counsel employees who are not properly date marking raw and ready-to-eat potentially hazardous foods.
• Foods that are not date marked or that exceed the allowable time period (7 days or 14 days for vacuum sealed product) will be discarded.

What records will be kept?

• Completed training checklist

Created(Date): 1/4/16

By: Randall Davis, Food Hub & Food Safety Coordinator

Last Revised: 6/6/16

By: Randall Davis, Food Hub & Food Safety Coordinator

Document available here - 3.1 Date Marking Raw and RTE Foods