Welcome to this special edition of Food News where we cover the positive actions we're taking about cooking medium rare burgers, preview the welcome launch of InformationLeader and release of National Programme Guidance..
As you'll know there was a lot of publicity and social media around a chef in the Bay of Islands believing that he needed to take a medium rare burger off his menu.
Far North District Council verifier gave the chef three options for dealing with the burger, including developing a Custom Food Control Plan. First off we'd like to say that the verifier was correct in her actions and recommendations and we are happy to stand behind her.
To help with the industry enquiries about whether chefs can continue to serve medium-rare burgers and what modifications to their processes might be needed, we've decided to do two things.
- To create a set of interim tips for cooking medium rare burgers safely. These tips don't have legal status but will mean that medium rare cooking can safely be continued. These tips are on our website (look for the item at the bottom of the web page)
- We're moving quickly to develop a special template section on cooking medium rare burgers and other red meat specialities like beef tartare. We've selected a group of chefs and other specialists to work on the safe processes. The new burger section will be part of the Simply Safe and Suitable template, We will consult with chefs on it and expect to have it finished in about two months time.
Please note we are working to a short timeline on this item – consultation windows are limited due to the election so we are working towards having the consultation on the new section completed before the House rises in mid-August. This means there will be a shortened consultation period – please look out for this at the end of July.
Our Simply Safe and Suitable template was developed to cover a very broad range of food businesses and give people the standards for keeping food safe. But we are always happy to look at issues in food businesses where our standard template doesn't cater for an industry need. If you see any particular issues emerging we'd be pleased to hear from you.