Harbour Community College (HCC) offers a 2-year food service degree program. Students learn how to set up and manage food service operation in hotels, hospital, schools, businesses, and so on. One of the most import courses is Food Service Sanitation and Safety (FSSS). Students taking the course are required to study a government-mandated food service process control approach called HACCP – Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. They are required to conduct some research to learn about HACCP. They are also required to apply the approach to HCC’s cafeteria. Christina Clark is taking the FSS course and has an internship in the cafeteria. She has been charged with developing a process control plan based on HACCP Principles for meeting food safety requirements. For example, the requirements for hot dogs include:
Receiving: Refrigerated hot dogs should be between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 34 degrees Fahrenheit when received.
Storage: Storage temperature should be between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 34 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cooking: Hot dogs should be heated to a temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit within 30 minutes of placing on the grill.
Cooked Storage: Leftover hot dogs must be covered and placed in refrigeration immediately and reach a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower within 4 hours.
Reheating: Hot dogs must be reheated to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit within 20 minutes, one time only.
1. If you were Christina, how would you design a process control plan to ensure that these requirements were met?
2. Design specific forms or “standard operating procedures” that you think would be helpful in implementing your plan, specifically for the example of hot dogs.
3. How might the process control plan have to be modified to deal with handling ground, uncooked meat, such as hamburger or pork sausage, keeping in mind that the risk of bacterial contamination is much higher for such products?