Food Storage

Appears in
Professional Cooking: 10th Edition
Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2025

  • About

The following rules of safe food storage have two purposes:

  1. To prevent contamination of foods.
  2. To prevent growth of bacteria that may already be in foods.

Temperature control is an important part of food storage. Perishable foods must be kept out of the Food Danger Zone—40° to 140°F (4° to 60°C)—as much as possible, because these temperatures support bacterial growth. See Figure 2.1 for a chart of important temperatures.

Figure 2.1 Important temperatures in sanitation and food protection.