What temperature should a fridge be?
Chilled food must be kept at 8°C or below. This is a legal requirement in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The FSA recommends setting your fridge to 5°C or below, so food stays cold enough even if the temperature changes.
Chilled food can be out of the fridge for up to 4 hours; after that it must be thrown away. If it has been out for less than 4 hours, it can go back in the fridge.
- Food with a use-by date
- Cooked dishes
- Ready-to-eat food such as prepared salads and desserts
Cooking temperatures
The FSA's standard advice is to cook food until its core reaches 70°C for 2 minutes. Other safe time and temperature combinations are:
- 60°C for 45 minutes
- 65°C for 10 minutes
- 75°C for 30 seconds
- 80°C for 6 seconds
Check with a clean probe thermometer in the centre of the food. Poultry, duck, pork, rolled joints, offal and minced meat products such as burgers, sausages and kebabs must always be cooked all the way through.
Hot holding and reheating
Hot food that isn't served straight away must be kept at 63°C or above. It can be below 63°C for up to 2 hours; after that, cool it as quickly as possible to 8°C or below, or throw it away.
Reheating means cooking food again until it is steaming hot all the way through, not just warming it up. Food can only be reheated once.
Freezing and defrosting
Put frozen deliveries in the freezer straight away, and label and date everything you freeze. Defrost food in the fridge. Bacteria can grow if defrosting food sits between 8°C and 63°C.
How to record temperatures
In the SFBB pack, fridge temperatures are part of the daily opening checks, and cooking checks are recorded with a probe. Inspectors look not only at whether temperatures are right, but at whether they are checked and written down regularly. Blank days count as missing records.
How Pomfy helps
Pomfy's wireless sensors measure your fridges day and night. If a fridge leaves its safe range, you get a phone notification, even when the app is closed. While a sensor is healthy, the daily fridge check is recorded automatically, and probe readings are kept in Daily Checks.