How is food safety judged when eating out?

The criterion for judging a meal eaten out is not taste or appearance but temperature and time. How long a plate of food has waited and at what temperature is the most informative question that can be asked about it.

Below we cover the range hot and cold service is held in, where the two-hour rule works, which products ask for more care, what a delivery order goes through on the way home, and the signs that can be seen with the eye at a venue.

What the judgment measures

Whether a dish is safe cannot be understood with the naked eye; smell and appearance are late signs of spoilage. That is why the judgment looks not at the dish but at the process the dish has been through.

The process has two measures: at what temperature it was held and how long it waited. If these two are not known, what is left is guessing, and guessing is not a criterion.

What range hot service is held in

The range the guideline gives is clear: if foods are to be kept hot until they are eaten, the holding temperature should be above 65 degrees and for at most three hours. If the temperature has fallen below 63 degrees, the waiting time is at most two hours.

The function of hot service containers becomes clear here too. The purpose of a bain-marie is not to heat cold food but to hold the food put into it at a certain temperature; a container that is still warming up means the measure is not being met.

Cold service and the open buffet

Foods eaten cold or held cold are kept in environments below 4 degrees. If the temperature has risen above 8 degrees, the waiting time is at most four hours.

This distinction is decisive for salads, meze, cold sandwiches and desserts containing milk products. Whether the containers stand on a bed of ice is the most concrete sign that can be checked at an open service.

Where the two-hour rule works

Cooked foods are not left standing out at room temperature for more than two hours. The same period also applies to cooling a cooked dish and putting it in the fridge.

On the cooling side the guideline is even more detailed: the temperature of the food should be brought down from 60 degrees to 37 degrees in at most two hours, and from 37 degrees to 4 degrees in at most four hours. The zone in between is called the danger zone.

We covered the equivalent for leftovers at home in this tip.

Which products ask for more care

The guideline marks one group separately: products such as meat, meat products, fish, milk, yogurt and cheese, which are high in nutritional value but spoil easily in microbiological terms. These are defined as potentially hazardous foods.

That is why, when choosing while eating out, the type of product carries as much information as the venue itself. Items with ground meat, milk and seafood have a narrower time window than the grain- or vegetable-based items at the same table.

What a delivery order goes through on the way home

In delivery service a dish is neither heated nor cooled after it leaves the kitchen; it only cools. The difference between the hour it sets out and the hour it is put on the table is a period that runs inside the two-hour rule.

For that reason the delivery time is not a detail of taste when an order is placed. Food that arrives hot is eaten right away; if it is not going to be eaten right away it is not left standing, it is cooled under suitable conditions and put in the fridge.

We described the decisions about the content of the order separately in this guide.

Service outdoors and on the road

Outdoors, temperature control gets harder, because both the ambient temperature rises and the waiting time stretches. In hot weather the same dish reaches the same point in a shorter time.

The measure is the same for food taken along. If an item that has to be carried cold cannot be carried cold, an option less sensitive to temperature goes in its place.

What can be seen with the eye at a venue

There are a few concrete things that can be looked at on the service side: the cleanliness of the tools and equipment, scratched, cracked or broken containers not being used, plates and glasses not being held by the rim, and a utensil that falls on the floor not being used again.

These are criteria not because they let you pass judgment on a venue but because they can be observed. In businesses providing mass catering, applying the hazard analysis and critical control points system is in any case a legal requirement.

Children, older people, pregnant and breastfeeding women and people whose immune systems are suppressed are counted as a risk group in this matter; in these groups the choice is kept narrower, and if there is a clinical condition the decision belongs to the doctor.

In short: look for above 65 degrees in hot service and below 4 degrees in cold service, do not eat food that has stood out for more than two hours, and keep the time window narrow for items that spoil easily. The rest of eating out is completed by the eating out guide.