The 4 C's - A Simple Framework for Food Safety Control

The 4 C’s are Cleaning, Cooking, Chilling, and Cross-Contamination Prevention. This provides an easy-to-remember framework to focus your control measures on these four crucial elements:

Cleaning

Proper cleaning and sanitation ensures removal of dirt, food particles, oils, allergens, and most importantly – pathogenic microorganisms. While cleaning is vital in all areas of a food facility, focus especially on food contact surfaces. This includes:

• Equipment like slicers, cutting boards, blenders etc.
• Utensils such as knives, scoops, tongs.
• Food prep tables and other direct contact surfaces.

Developing Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOPs) that specify:

• Cleaning agents and concentrations to use
• Cleaning frequencies for each area and equipment
• Detailed cleaning step procedures
• Monitoring sanitizer strength
• Verifying cleaning effectiveness

…helps institutionalize cleaning best practices.

Cleaning controls should encompass not just production areas, but also outer areas where pests, debris, and other contaminants may enter. Establish master cleaning schedules and logs to ensure all areas are cleaned regularly and documented.

Cooking

Pathogenic bacteria and viruses can infiltrate various raw foods including meats, eggs, dairy, seafood, fruits, and vegetables. While produce is addressed under Chilling, proper cooking provides a critical control point for eliminating pathogens from other raw ingredients.

• All animal-derived foods require thorough cooking to an adequate internal temperature that destroys salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter and other pathogens.
• Vegetables also need thorough cooking and hot holding e.g. for preparing refried beans.
• Even pasteurized dairy and eggs should be cooked to safe temperatures.
  Monitoring cooking temperatures with calibrated thermometers and recording results provides important verification that adequate pathogen destruction is achieved.

Chilling

Time and temperature control is vital to prevent microbial hazards and limit spoilage in prepared foods. Refrigerating perishable foods below 41°F (5°C) prevents pathogen growth. Freezing at 0°F (-18°C) stops most microbial activity.

Key practices under chilling controls include:

• Monitoring and recording temperatures of fridges, freezers, cold storage, display cases.
• Establishing raw material shelf life and use-by dates based on chilling.
• Rapidly chilling cooked foods prior to refrigeration.
• Thawing foods correctly – under refrigeration, running water, or in the microwave.
• Adhering to time limits for leaving foods at room temperature during preparation.
• Transporting foods at proper temperatures.

For produce, prompt and adequate chilling controls microbial hazards that may be present in or on fruits and vegetables.

Cross-Contamination Prevention

This addresses transmission of pathogens from raw to ready-to-eat foods via hands, surfaces, utensils etc.

Cross-contamination controls include:

• Maintaining separate areas for raw and cooked food processing.
• Using separate color-coded equipment and utensils for raw and RTE foods.
• Storing raw and cooked foods separately – raw below RTE.
• Adequate hand washing between handling different foods.
• Proper glove use and changing between tasks.
• Sanitizing surfaces between uses for different foods.
• Strict separation of food and waste areas.

By rigorously enforcing cross-contamination controls, pathogens have less opportunity to spread throughout the facility.