What Are High Risk Foods & Where Should High Risk Food Be Stored

Working in the food industry means that you’re responsible for keeping people safe from common food safety risks. One of the most important concepts to grasp is what high risk foods are - in other words, foods that have the potential to cause food poisoning if not handled correctly.

As providers of high quality online food safety training courses, our team at Virtual College is committed to helping food handlers and businesses understand the essentials of safe food handling. We’ll help break down exactly what high risk foods are, where they should be stored and how to handle them safely.

What Are High Risk Foods?

High risk foods are ready to eat foods that don't require any further cooking before they’re eaten. They’re usually refrigerated. They provide ideal conditions for harmful bacteria to grow, which is what makes them such a food safety risk.

If they aren’t handled properly, these foods can easily become vessels for foodborne illnesses. This is due to them providing an ideal environment for certain dangerous bacteria to flourish and also because any that have grown during storage aren’t destroyed by cooking directly before they’re eaten.

Examples of High Risk Foods

Curious to know which foods fall into the high risk category? Here are the main examples of high risk foods you should be aware of:

• Cooked Meat and Poultry - Including beef, pork, ham, lamb, chicken, turkey and duck.
• Meat Products - Meat pies, pastries, pâté, meat stock, gravy and cook-chill meals.
• Dairy Products - Milk, cream, artificial cream, custards, unpasteurised milk products and soft or mould-ripened cheeses.
• Egg Products - Cooked eggs, quiche and foods containing uncooked or lightly cooked eggs (e.g. mayonnaise, mousse, homemade ice cream).
• Shellfish and Seafood - Such as mussels, cockles, cooked prawns, raw oysters and seafood salads.
• Cooked Rice and Pasta 
• Prepared Salads - Such as coleslaw, pasta salads and rice salads.
• Ready-to-Eat Foods - Like sandwiches, rolls and wraps.
• Prepared Fruit - Cut or prepared fruits.

These are some key high risk food examples to watch out for, but it’s by no means a comprehensive list, with many more foods falling into these subcategories.

Why Might High Risk Foods Cause Food Poisoning?

While it’s good to have a list of key examples of high risk foods to watch out for, it’s better for you to understand exactly what makes them so risky. That way you’ll be able to spot the conditions for yourself.

In essence, high risk foods are more likely to cause food poisoning because they provide the perfect environment for harmful bacteria to grow and multiply.

In order to grow, bacteria need five key things:

1. Protein - The higher the protein content the higher the risk of bacteria feeding on it.
2. Moisture - Bacteria can't grow without water - that’s why foods with high moisture content encourage bacterial growth but dry foods don't.
3. Warmth - Bacteria multiply fastest between 5°C and 60°, often known as the food danger zone.
4. Neutral pH - As living organisms, bacteria prefer conditions that aren't too acidic or too alkaline. This is why acidic foods like pickles are lower risk.
5. Time - If the rest of the conditions above are right, bacteria can multiply - all it needs is time. That’s why the time it’s spent in the food danger zone is so important. Proper food labelling and dating practices should make this easy to know at a glance.

High risk foods often provide all these conditions in a perfect storm. That makes them ideal breeding grounds for harmful bacteria that could cause food poisoning if consumed.

So when you're trying to identify whether a food is high risk, consider: Is it moist? Is it high in protein? Is it not very acidic? Is it ready to eat without further cooking? If yes to most of these questions, treat it as high risk.

Common Bacteria

The most typical types of food poisoning bacteria are:

• Salmonella 

• Campylobacter (the most common cause of food poisoning in the UK)
• E. coli 
• Listeria 

• Bacillus cereus

• Clostridium perfringens

While food contaminated with these bacteria is highly harmful, it usually looks, tastes and smells completely normal. You can’t detect food poisoning bacteria without laboratory tests. 

That’s why it’s so crucial that high risk foods are kept at safe temperatures and use proper food handling techniques like using proper chopping board colour coding - as there is no way of knowing if high risk foods have developed harmful bacteria before it’s too late.

Low Risk Foods - The Contrast

So what about how low risk foods differ from their high risk counterparts?

Low risk foods are typically stored at room temperature which makes it much harder for bacteria to grow on them.

Low risk foods usually have specific qualities that keep bacteria at bay. They might be very dry, highly acidic or contain lots of sugar or salt. All these factors create environments where harmful bacteria struggle to multiply.

Some common examples of low risk foods include:

• Bread and biscuits
• Cereals
• Unopened canned food
• Dried pasta and uncooked rice
• Jams and preserves
• Pickled foods
• Foods with high sugar content like chocolate
• Dried foods like spices and flour

But here's something worth knowing - even low risk foods can become high risk in certain situations. 

Take rice or pasta, for example. When it's dry and uncooked, it's low risk but once you add water and cook it, it becomes high risk and needs proper cooling and storage. The same goes for fruit - whole fruits are generally low risk, but once you cut them open, the moist surface can allow bacteria to grow.

Where Should High Risk Foods Be Stored

Keeping high risk foods at the right heat is needed to stop bacteria from growing. 

Following rules for food temperature control is the best way to minimise bacteria spreading, as they grow fastest between 5°C and 60°C - otherwise known as the "danger zone." Here’s how.

Fridge Tips

Store high risk foods in a fridge that’s set to 5°C or below to minimise bacteria growth. Most professional fridges have an integrated thermometer so you can check this. You’ll also need to:

• Store your high risk foods in closed boxes or wrap them well with proper dates on them. This keeps them fresh and stops any mix-up between foods.
• Keep raw meats and fish at the bottom. This stops any drips from getting onto other foods below. Keep ready-to-eat foods on higher shelves where they're safe from any raw food.
• Don't pack your fridge too full. Air needs to move around to keep everything cold enough.

Freezing Tips

Freezing can help high risk foods last longer. Set your freezer below -18°C to keep bacteria from being able to multiply. Here’s some extra guidance on freezing food safely:

• Before freezing large batches of food, portion it off into smaller portions. This helps it freeze faster and allows you to thaw only what you need.
• Use high quality freezer bags and write the date you froze it on them. While freezing stops bacteria from growing, it doesn't kill them - they'll start growing again once the food thaws.
• Never refreeze food that's been completely thawed. 

Keeping Food Hot

Another point at which bacteria could begin to grow is when food cools from 60°C. Here are some tips for how to keep hot food safe to eat.

• Professional kitchens use tools like hot boxes and water baths to keep food at safe heats. At home, a low oven can work for short times.
• However, don't keep food hot for too long. Even at safe heats, food quality starts to deteriorate after a few hours. As a rule, don't hold hot food for more than 4 hours.
• When adding newly cooked food to a hot area, don't mix it with food that's been sitting there. This could bring the heat down to unsafe levels.

How to Handle High Risk Foods Safely

Knowing how to handle high risk foods properly is another way to stop foodborne illness. Here are some useful, everyday tips for how to put this into practice.

Preventing Cross-Contamination

Cross-contamination is one of the biggest causes of food poisoning, but it’s easy to prevent using these methods:

• Use different cutting boards for different foods. This is an established convention in professional kitchens where there are up to 7 different chopping board colours specifically for use with different raw and cooked food types (like fish, vegetables, raw meat, etc.) Ensuring that raw and cooked foods aren’t prepared on the same surface makes a big difference in stemming the likelihood of cross-contamination.
• After working with raw foods, clean your work tops and tools well. A quick wipe isn't enough - use hot, soapy water and an antibacterial cleaner. Change your dishcloths often as they can hold lots of bacteria.
• And remember to wash your hands well before and after handling food, mostly raw meat and chicken. Good hand washing is one of the easiest ways to stop food illness.

Cooking Food Properly

Cooking food all the way through kills harmful bacteria. Here’s how to do that properly.

• In professional kitchens, chefs use specialist thermometers to check food has hit at least 75°C in the middle. For meat, the juices should run clear (not pink) when pierced.
• Large joints of meat in particular need to be checked as they can appear cooked on the outside but not be fully cooked inside. 
• If you’re reheating food, ensure it's steaming hot all the way through. Only heat food again once as each time you cool and reheat, you give bacteria more chances to grow.

Cooling Food Safely

When you need to cool hot food for storage, do it fast as bacteria grow fastest at warm heats. The goal is to move it through the temperature danger zone (5°C-60°C) as quickly as possible using these steps.

• Divide batches into portions in smaller, shallow containers. This helps it cool faster by putting more of the food in contact with the air. 
• For big batches, you can speed cooling by putting boxes in cold water before they go in the fridge.
• Allow very hot food to stop steaming before refrigerating. However, don't leave it out for more than an hour or two - use water to cool the containers if needed.
• Once cooled, always cover food before storing it in the refrigerator to prevent contamination.

Hand Washing

Ensure your hands are always clean when you work with food. Do this by washing them well with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds before making food, after touching raw meat and when switching between different tasks.

Tip: Remember to wash between your fingers, under your nails and up to your wrists to get your hands properly clean. Dry them with a clean towel or paper.

If you have a cut on your hands, cover it with a water-tight plaster before handling food. You can wear gloves on top but remember to change these out as regularly as you would wash your hands.

Date Labels and High Risk Foods

Knowing when high risk foods are no longer safe to eat is just as important as knowing how to store them. Understanding food date labels helps you manage them safely.

Use by dates appear on most high risk foods. After these dates, do not eat the food, even if it looks and smells fine. Food businesses cannot legally sell or serve food past its use by date.

Best before dates usually appear on low risk foods like biscuits and tinned goods. These indicate quality rather than safety - food past this date is usually safe to eat but might have lost flavour or texture.

Keeping Vulnerable Groups Safe from High Risk Foods

Some groups need extra protection from foodborne illnesses because they’re at increased risk from foodborne illnesses due to their weaker immune systems. Young children, elderly people, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems are all less likely to be able to fight off any illnesses they’re exposed to and the effects can be more serious.

While you should always have an uncompromising attitude to safe food preparation, remember to be extra vigilant when preparing food for these people. 

Learn How To Master Food Safety Risks

If you want to know more about how you keep customers safe when you’re preparing food, you’re in the right place. Our accredited 100% online food safety courses teach you everything you need to know about handling food properly. 

Not sure what level to choose? If you work directly with food you’re likely to need a Food Hygiene Certificate Level 2.

Check out our courses today and get learning immediately.