Estimated reading time: ~18 minutes Why Should I Care? In 1959, NASA scientists and engineers began working with Pillsbury and U.S. Army food researchers on a problem nobody had ever really faced before: how do…

The Last Few Feet The chicken was cooked to the right temperature. The sauce was cooled correctly. The vegetables were reheated safely. Everything was held at the right temperature, and the kitchen did exactly what…

A line cook wipes raw chicken juice off a cutting board with a rag, then uses that same board to slice tomatoes for a salad. A different cook uses a clean cutting board to make…

Picture this: you are managing a restaurant with a salad bar and you just found out one of your food handlers who has been prepping ingredients — cutting carrots, trimming lettuce, portioning out salad dressing…

A case of chicken is pulled from refrigeration, carted through a refrigerated warehouse onto a refrigerated loading dock, and stacked inside a refrigerated truck. It’s at exactly the right temperature: 38°F. It’s in perfect condition.…

A food handler at a busy salad bar cuts her finger while prepping lettuce. She bandages it right away — good instinct — but skips the glove that's supposed to go over it. A few…

A prep cook slices up a few melons for a platter first thing in the morning, well ahead of that afternoon's event. It's just fruit — cut, arranged, ready to eat. No raw meat, no…