Food Safety - Tips for Food Storage

Food and cook/serving ware should never be stored on the floor.

All kitchen items (food, utensils, etc) should be stored 6” from off the floor. This protects your food/equipment from outside contaminants such as pests and spills (not to mention being stepped on!)

Food should only be stored in food-grade containers such as Ziplock bags or Tupperware. Storing food in containers not made for food could allow your food to pick up any harmful chemicals in the container
you are using.

Always make sure you clean and sanitize your containers before you use them!
Storing Food in refrigerators:

-There is a specific order in which food should be stored which is based on the internal cooking temperatures of each particular kind of food - the higher the internal cooking temperature, the lower you place it in the refrigerator. The reasoning for this is that if anything should drip from an upper shelf to a lower shelf, the dripping will be cooked at a temperature higher than the temp it needs to be considered “safe.”

Top Shelf: Ready to eat food
2nd Shelf: Seafood
3rd Shelf: Whole cuts of meat
4th Shelf: Ground Meat
Bottom Shelf: Whole and ground poultry

If you need to, you can store seafood with whole cuts of meat, as their internal cooking temperatures are the same.