Marker pens to label foods

[Dhadendra Lal]

Daer team,

 

In some food establishments marker pens are in use to label food items.

On investigation it is found the ink is not food grade.

Have you observed the same in your operations ?

 

What is the method you use for date labelling / markings in your preparation / storage areas.

Not sure this is discussed earlier in the forum.

 

Please share your practice.

 

 

Best regards

 

 

 

[Bobby Krishna]

Lal, 

Do you label directly on the food contact surface (such as a container or a cling film?)

It is not recommended to use marker pens on food contact surfaces or food. Date stickers are preferable. However, if you are writing on a label, the risk is very low unless your marker pen ends up in the soup!

If high risk practices are well managed, and if you have sufficient resources, it would be ok to invest on a date printer.

How badly I wish someone in tr group asked me about the use of thermometer!

Bobby krishna

Sent from my iPhone. Please ignore the spell errors

Like to make your food safe?

Visit www.foodsafe.ae

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[Specifico Gmail]

Dear Dadendra, 

As everything else, safe solutions are available such as the thermal printing of labels to avoid the usage of ink. In fact the other issue with labels is their adhesive which is also a source of chemical contamination to food, this would occur if labels designed for non food items are used, some establishments buy their labels from a stationary or local printers who are basically providing labels not made for kitchens. 

Labels with Food grade adhesive and thermal printers are of course available in the market at the one and only provider of complete food safety solutions: Specifico & Co :) contact us and all your food safety issues are solved:)

Sent from my iPhone

On May 13, 2013, at 7:12 PM, Dhadendra Lal <lalbi...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Specifico Gmail]

Bobby, 

What about thermometers? 

I badly need to understand how do establishments pay more than 100 dhs to send their pocket thermometers for the "so called calibration" while the new pocket thermometer initially costs around 80 dhs??? Can someone please explain the waste of money? Thermometers and any other food contact product must be NSF listed or CE approved to be safe.

Sent from my iPhone

[Kevin Satish]

Dear Bob,

We use the Cooper analog bi-metallic probe thermometer. Can't we just do the 50:50 Ice water calibration technique or boiling water calibration technique for calibrating the Chef pocket thermometer?

The Calibration of such thermometer needs to be done atleast weekly once and also as the need arises like trips n falls.

In my hotel there are almost 90 Chef thermometers in use and every single owner of it is solely responsible for the upkeep and calibration of the same. The same gets verified by every outlet Chef-In charge and the Hygiene Manager [ME :-)], checks randomly during the audits.

Sending the Chef pocket thermometer outside for calibration involves a lot of money and what if a Chef drops the thermometer on the floor the next of calibration?

-Kevin

[Richard Sprenger]

 

 

Hi Kevin

 

Provided that you verify the accuracy of your thermometers on a weekly/monthly basis, and especially after potential damage, for example, because the thermometer has been dropped then I cannot see the justification for sending thermometers for expensive calibration on an annual basis (especially if you know the thermometer is accurate and, as Rita said, the calibration costs more than the thermometer). If it is a requirement for a customer or a standard then perhaps you get one thermometer calibrated and check the accuracy of the other thermometers against the one that has been externally calibrated. (You would need to obtain agreement for this) It is possible for you to do your own calibration with some thermometers, I believe Pete Snyder did a paper on this. Unfortunately this will not provide you with the annual certificate of calibration that some auditors require.

 

What is the point of a certificate, if the thermometer is not used or not used properly? -  It is the same as a food safety qualification when the recipient doesn’t implement the good practices they are taught.

 

Furthermore, it could be argued that the annual external calibration is like an annual specimen test – it is only valid on the day of the test/calibration. The following day the thermometer could be dropped and if you are not verifying the accuracy on a regular basis, proportional to its use, then you are exposing your customers to serious risk

 

Regards

 

Richard