Food Safety Rules-Grocery Orders

[Shizle7]

There seems to be some confusion with the Food Safety Rules in our department for grocery pick up, so I’d like your feedback please.

This is in regards to fresh meat and the “placement”, if you will, of fresh meat (chicken, beef, etc).

1 of our team members says the placement has to do with where you put the items on your cart (ex: on a 3-tier on the top or middle).

1 of our team members says it has to do with how you place the items together in a bag (so bagging the items together).

1 of our team members says it has to do with where you place the items in the storage bins in the refrigerator (each meat in its own bag).

It’s basically mass confusion-what’s your input?

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

If you search in Workbench for fresh grocery guidelines, or grocery freshness, I can't recall the exact name, it should direct you to a 4-5 page document that includes the date guidelines for picking as well as fruit and veggie freshness info.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

The date restrictions vary by category. I keep a cheat sheet in case anything is close. But, off the top of my head, fresh meat, for example, needs to have at least three days left. By the way that corporate counts it since today is the 16th, you can't pick meat that has a use or freeze by date of the 16th or 17th. Today is one day. Tomorrow is the 2nd day. Wednesday is the 3rd day, so you can pick meat that expires on the 18th if it looks fresh.

Dated veggies are also 3 days. Dairy is 5 days. Bread is 5 days. Dry is 10 days(?). Frozen is 20 days.

Basically, the idea is to give the guest time to consume the item and not assume that everything ordered will necessarily be eaten that day. It causes some INFs, but since our grocery INFs are below 2% for the year, IDGAF about date-based INFs.
Thanks
@seasonaldude

 

[seasonaldude]

There seems to be some confusion with the Food Safety Rules in our department for grocery pick up, so I’d like your feedback please.

This is in regards to fresh meat and the “placement”, if you will, of fresh meat (chicken, beef, etc).

1 of our team members says the placement has to do with where you put the items on your cart (ex: on a 3-tier on the top or middle).

1 of our team members says it has to do with how you place the items together in a bag (so bagging the items together).

1 of our team members says it has to do with where you place the items in the storage bins in the refrigerator (each meat in its own bag).

It’s basically mass confusion-what’s your input?

Everyone is essentially corect.

There are actually somewhat complex rules about where different gocery items are supposed to go in a picker's cart beyond just raw meat. (These were obviously made by someone who has never picked a 20(87) batch with 25 minutes left on the timer.) Raw meat is always supposed to go on the lowest used tier to prevent leakage onto items below it. Good luck with that if the batch contains 5 24 packs of water though.

It also has to do with how the items are bagged. Raw meat should never be bagged with other items nor should different types of meat be bagged together. So, please don't bag bacon with stew meat, for example. If this is done properly, the items will be in different bags in the cooler. They can all go in the same bin as long as they are bagged separately.

There's really no reason to overthink it. The basic idea is to just prevent cross-contamination from the shelf to the guest's fridge.

 

[MrT]

All fresh meats and unbagged produce should also be in those cheap clear plastic bags in in the market area. Different meat proteins, eggs, and any produce should be bagged separately when bagging as well. If all those conditions are met then you can place those bags in the hold bins together. Like HLM and Seasonaldude said there are a lot of rules that should be followed and are available on workbench. I printed them out and taped them to the wall near the hold locations up front so no one can say they don't know the rules at my store.