Why temperature matters so much
Bacteria that cause food poisoning — Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli, Campylobacter — thrive between 8°C and 63°C. This range is often called the "danger zone". Keep food either cold enough or hot enough, and you starve bacterial growth. Let it sit in the middle for too long, and you're taking a serious risk with your customers.
Temperature control isn't just good practice — it's a legal requirement under Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 (retained in UK law post-Brexit) and underpins every HACCP plan.
The key temperatures you need to know
| Stage | Temperature Requirement | |---|---| | Refrigerated storage | 5°C or below (ideally 1–4°C) | | Frozen storage | -18°C or below | | Hot holding during service | 63°C minimum | | Cooking poultry, pork, minced meat | 75°C core temperature | | Cooling cooked food | Below 8°C within 90 minutes | | Reheating | 75°C minimum (82°C in Scotland) |
Cold storage: what to check
Fridges should run between 1°C and 5°C. The top shelf is usually the coldest; the door the warmest. Organise your fridge properly:
- Top shelf: ready-to-eat foods (cooked meats, dairy, prepared desserts)
- Middle shelves: raw ingredients that will be cooked
- Bottom shelf: raw meat, poultry, and fish — covered and contained to prevent drips
Check and log fridge temperatures at least twice daily. A fridge sitting at 7°C might look fine but is a serious risk. If you rely only on the built-in dial, you're trusting equipment that may not be calibrated correctly. Use a probe thermometer to verify.
**Common causes of fridge failure:**- Overloading (prevents air circulation)
- Door seals worn or damaged
- Condenser coils dirty
- Door left open during busy service
Cooking temperatures: no guessing allowed
For high-risk proteins, temperature must be verified by probing — not judged by colour or texture. A chicken breast that looks cooked can still have a cold centre.
**Probe technique:**- Clean and sanitise the probe before each use
- Insert into the thickest part of the food, away from bone
- Wait for the reading to stabilise (usually 5–10 seconds)
- Record the reading immediately
For burgers, sausages, and any other minced meat, the entire product must reach 75°C, not just the surface. Mincing distributes surface bacteria throughout the product.
Hot holding: keeping food safe during service
Food on a buffet, bain-marie, or hot counter must stay at 63°C or above at all times. Check it regularly during service — at least every 2 hours.
If hot-held food drops below 63°C:
- Record the time and temperature
- Reheat to 75°C if it's been less than 2 hours in the danger zone
- Discard if it's been more than 2 hours at unsafe temperature
The 2-hour rule: food should not be in the temperature danger zone (8°C–63°C) for more than 2 cumulative hours. After that, it should be discarded.
Cooling cooked food quickly
This is where many businesses slip up. Cooked food left on a counter to "cool down" before refrigerating can spend hours in the danger zone.
Best practice:
- Divide into smaller portions to increase surface area
- Use a blast chiller if you have one (most efficient)
- Place in shallow trays and put in the fridge or a cool-water bath
- Target: below 8°C within 90 minutes
Never put hot food directly into a household-style refrigerator — it raises the temperature of everything inside and strains the compressor.
Reheating food correctly
Food must only be reheated once. Reheating repeatedly kills more bacteria each time, but allows sporulation and toxin production to accumulate with each cooling cycle.
When reheating, reach 75°C (82°C in Scotland) throughout. For soups and stews, ensure you bring to a rolling boil, not just a simmer.
Monitoring and recording temperatures
Under HACCP, temperature monitoring isn't optional. You need to:
- Check and record temperatures at set intervals (at minimum, start and end of service)
- Note corrective actions when limits are breached
- Keep records for at least 3 months (longer is better)
Paperwork-based temperature logs are time-consuming and easy to lose. KitchenPortal's digital probe integration records temperatures automatically, timestamps readings, and sends alerts if a CCP goes out of range — so you're always covered.
*Get your temperature records out of notebooks and into the cloud. [Start your free CompliChef trial](https://portal.complichef.co.uk/signup.php) today.*
