Page 33 - Comprehensive Food Safety

31.03.2020

PREPARING

PREVENTING CROSS-CONTAMINATION

Food that becomes contaminated by harmful microbes (bugs), chemicals and dirt can make
people ill and cause food spoilage. The Act requires that:

“Food must be processed and handled in ways that minimise the contamination or
deterioration of food and prevents food from containing any biological or chemical agents or

other substance that would be unexpected and unreasonable in food.”

You need to keep raw and cooked/ready-to-eat foods separate from one another when storing
and preparing by using one of the following methods:

o use different spaces and equipment (chopping boards, knives and utensils), or
o process at different times (cleaning in between), and/or
o thoroughly clean and sanitise surfaces, boards, knives and other utensils between use.

Make sure your workflow is set up so you can safely move around your area (eg so you don’t
carry raw chicken across areas where cooled/ready-to-eat food is being handled.

Anyone processing and handling both raw and ready-to-eat foods or allergen free and allergen
containing foods must carry out good hygiene practices before handling foods eg hand washing;

changing overclothing between tasks involving raw and ready-to-eat foods.

What if there is a problem?

• If foods that need to be kept apart are not properly separated, stop activities until they
are.

• If you cannot use one of the three available methods to keep ready-to-eat apart from
raw food, do not handle unwrapped ready-to-eat foods.
• Ready-to-eat or allergen free food that has been cross-contaminated must not be sold
unless it can be made safe and suitable. If in doubt, throw it away.
• Find out what happened and take action to prevent it happening again.
• Review staff training.

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