ServSafe Manager Management of Food Safety Practices Summary

The Food Code says a person in charge (PIC) must be present during all hours of operation. The PIC must be able to show food safety knowledge, for example by being a certified food protection manager, and the Food Code expects at least one supervisor or manager to hold that certification.

Wrong choices

• A licensed health inspector: Inspectors visit on a schedule; they do not stay during all hours of operation.
• The owner of the business: The owner does not have to be there. Someone must be the person in charge each shift.
• A registered dietitian: A dietitian is not required by the Food Code to be present.

HACCP has seven principles in this order:

1. Conduct a hazard analysis
2. Determine critical control points (CCPs)
3. Establish critical limits
4. Establish monitoring procedures
5. Identify corrective actions
6. Verify that the system works
7. Establish procedures for record keeping and documentation

Wrong choices

• Determine critical control points: This is the second principle. You must find the hazards first.
• Establish corrective actions: Corrective actions are the fifth principle.
• Keep records: Record keeping is the last principle.

There are three kinds of food safety hazards: biological (bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, and toxins), chemical (cleaners, sanitizers, polishes, and toxic metals), and physical (glass, metal, bone, dirt). Norovirus is a virus, so it is a biological hazard.

Wrong choices

• Glass from a broken light bulb: Glass is a physical hazard.
• Sanitizer that splashed into food: Sanitizer is a chemical hazard.
• A fish bone: A bone is a physical hazard.

The CDC lists five common risk factors: purchasing food from unsafe sources, failing to cook food correctly, holding food at incorrect temperatures, using contaminated equipment, and practicing poor personal hygiene.

Wrong choices

• Serving food on paper plates: Paper plates are not a risk factor for foodborne illness.
• Using a gas stove instead of an electric stove: The type of stove does not matter. Cooking food to the right temperature matters.
• Serving food in large portions: Portion size is not a food safety risk factor.

High-risk populations include preschool-age children (their immune systems are not fully built), older adults (immune systems weaken with age), and people with weakened immune systems, such as people with cancer or HIV, transplant recipients, and people taking certain medicines.

Wrong choices

• Healthy adults aged 20 to 40: Healthy adults have stronger immune systems than high-risk groups.
• High school athletes: Healthy teenagers are not in the high-risk group.
• Restaurant employees: Working in a restaurant does not make a person high-risk.

Active managerial control means the manager takes steps every day to control the most common risk factors for foodborne illness, such as buying food from unsafe sources, cooking food incorrectly, holding food at the wrong temperature, using contaminated equipment, and poor personal hygiene.

Wrong choices

• To lower food costs in the kitchen: Cost control is good business, but it is not the goal of active managerial control.
• To prepare for the health inspector's visit only: Active managerial control works every day, not only before an inspection.
• To train staff on customer service: Customer service training is not the focus. The focus is food safety risk factors.

An outbreak happens when two or more people have the same symptoms after eating the same food, and an investigation confirms the food was the source.

Wrong choices

• One person feels sick after eating out: One person is not an outbreak. An outbreak needs two or more people.
• A food item is past its use-by date: An expired date is a quality or safety concern, but it is not an outbreak.
• A health inspector finds a violation: A violation is not an outbreak.

A critical limit is the minimum or maximum value that must be met at a critical control point to prevent, remove, or reduce a hazard. A cooking temperature and time is a typical critical limit.

Wrong choices

• A corrective action: A corrective action is what you do when a critical limit is not met, such as cooking longer.
• Monitoring: Monitoring is how you check the limit, such as taking the temperature with a thermometer.
• Verification: Verification checks that the whole plan works, such as reviewing logs.

When monitoring shows that a critical limit was not met, you take a corrective action. Continuing to cook until the food reaches the right temperature is a common corrective action.

Wrong choices

• Verification: Verification is a later check that the plan works, like a manager reviewing temperature logs.
• Hazard analysis: Hazard analysis happens when the plan is written, not during cooking.
• Record keeping: The cook may record it, but continuing to cook is the action that fixes the problem.

A variance is a document from the regulatory authority that allows a requirement to be waived or changed. Under the Food Code, special processes such as curing food, smoking food as a way to preserve it, using food additives to make food shelf-stable, custom-processing animals, sprouting seeds, and some reduced-oxygen packaging (ROP) need a variance and often a HACCP plan.

Wrong choices

• Cooking ground beef: Cooking ground beef to the right temperature is a normal process and needs no variance.
• Cooling soup in an ice-water bath: An ice-water bath is a normal cooling method.
• Thawing food in the refrigerator: Refrigerator thawing is the normal safe method.