The principles of food safety including personal, kitchen and equipment hygiene, preventing cross-contamination, the four Cs (cleaning, cooking, chilling, cross-contamination), and using temperature control and probes correctly.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to know the rules that keep food safe at every stage, why each matters, and how to use temperature control and a probe correctly. The four Cs are the framework to organise your answer.

Personal and kitchen hygiene

Cross-contamination

Prevent it by:

• Using separate, colour-coded chopping boards and utensils for raw and cooked foods (for example red for raw meat).
• Storing raw meat at the bottom of the fridge in sealed containers so juices cannot drip onto other foods.
• Washing hands, boards and equipment thoroughly between handling raw and cooked food.

The four Cs

The four Cs are the framework for food safety:

• Cleaning - keep yourself, surfaces and equipment clean, washing hands and sanitising work surfaces to remove bacteria.
• Cooking - cook food thoroughly (centre above 75 degrees C) to destroy bacteria, and reheat only once.
• Chilling - keep cold food cold (fridge below 5 degrees C, freezer minus 18 degrees C) to slow bacterial growth.
• Cross-contamination - keep raw and ready-to-eat food apart at every stage.

The four Cs map onto the conditions bacteria need: cleaning and avoiding cross-contamination remove the bacteria themselves, while cooking and chilling control temperature so bacteria are killed or cannot multiply. This is why an answer that simply says "be clean" scores poorly: the marks come from naming the rule and explaining the bacterial risk it controls.

Temperature control and probes

Try this

Q1. State the four Cs of food safety. [2 marks]

• Cue. Cleaning, cooking, chilling and cross-contamination.

Q2. Give the core temperature food should reach to be safely cooked. [1 mark]

• Cue. Above 75 degrees C at the centre.