It’s every manager’s dream to maintain a spotless health department record. Your customers deserve superior food and service and you’ve worked hard to give it to them. You’ve perfected your protocols and established pristine quality in your products.
You shouldn’t have to worry about potential food hazards spoiling your reputation. Keeping a cooking temperature log supports employee accountability and helps you avoid such a senseless issue.
Why logging cooking temperatures is important
Undercooked food is a major health hazard for customers of any food establishment. Food that isn’t heated to the proper temperature has a high risk of bacterial contamination, which can make people sick.
There are several reasons food might accidentally be served undercooked. The thermometer may need calibrated, or employees may forget to check the temperature of food before serving it.
Keeping a cooking temperature log can eliminate these challenges. Asking employees to fill out the chart after preparing each meal helps them remember to check food temperatures. In addition, if there’s an issue with the thermometer, the chart makes it easy to identify.
Helping food handlers learn to record cooking temperatures
When you train your employees, make sure to explain how to use the cooking temperature log. You can hang the log next to our cooking times and temperatures poster so employees will remember how long they should cook various types of food.
Review the log on a regular basis to make sure employees are filling it out. Depending on how often the log is actually used, you may want to offer small incentives to employees who complete it. You may also praise employees when you notice them using the log.
Filling out a temperature log may seem like an insignificant task, but it is crucial to reducing risk in your food establishment. For more resources to help instill safe food preparation habits in your employees, check out our stand-up training guides!
Share our cooking temperature chart with others!
- Download and print: Click on the image to download and print out the poster.
- Share the link: Share https://www.statefoodsafety.com/Resources/Resources/cooking-temperature-log on your website or social media.
- Embed the log on your site by copying this code: <a href=”https://www.statefoodsafety.com/Resources/Resources/cooking-temperature-log”><img src=”https://cdn.statefoodsafety.com/blog/2015/03/Cooking-Temperature-Log.png” width=”100%” border=”0″ /></a>
— Calvin Clark
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2015 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.
