High-risk foods and vulnerable groups

High-risk foods are ready-to-eat foods that support the growth of bacteria. They are usually moist and rich in protein, and they will not be cooked again before eating. Examples are cooked meat and poultry, gravy and stock, cooked rice and pasta, egg dishes, dairy desserts, shellfish, and prepared sandwiches and salads.

Low-risk foods do not support growth in their normal state. Dry pasta, uncooked rice, flour, sugar, jam and unopened cans are examples. But the risk changes when you change the food. Dry rice is low risk, and cooked rice is high risk. A can of tuna is low risk until it is opened. Then it needs to be chilled and given a short life.

Raw meat and poultry are not ready to eat, but they are an important source of contamination. They need separate storage and handling.

Look at your own menu. For each dish, ask what is in it, whether it is ready to eat, how long it will be held after preparation, and who will eat it. This gives a better picture than a general list. A platter of sliced cold meats on a wedding buffet is a higher risk than the same meat sliced to order.

Some people are more likely to become seriously ill from food. They are pregnant women and their unborn babies, babies and young children, older people, and people whose immune systems are weakened by illness or medical treatment. For these groups a smaller amount of a pathogen can cause illness, and the illness can be more severe. FSA risk work on Listeria in ready-to-eat smoked fish concluded that no level of contamination can be considered safe for vulnerable groups.

If you cater for these groups, for example in a care home, nursery, hospital or school, your system must reflect this. Review the menu and remove or control higher-risk items. These include cold-smoked and cured fish, soft mould-ripened cheese, pâté, raw or lightly cooked shellfish and foods made with unpasteurised milk. Follow current FSA or FSS advice on eggs, smoked fish and other foods for your setting.

Shorten the time between preparing and serving food. Apply use-by dates strictly. Take extra care when meals are carried from a kitchen to a dining room or a ward. Make sure agency staff and volunteers get the same instructions as permanent staff.

Here is an example. A care home cook plans to serve a cold smoked salmon mousse. The residents are elderly and several are having cancer treatment. The safe decision is to choose a different dish. The same dish might be acceptable in a restaurant, but the people eating it here are different. The food has not changed, but the risk has.