A bulletin for the Australian Food Industry    March 1995

Contents: Raw materials - the impact of biotechnology on food crops | New labelling requirements for cheese | Chlorine and drinking water | Safe food handling | Self-serve salad bars

Self-serve salad bars

Indicating the importance it attaches to this area of food safety, the National Food Authority has released its Code of Practice: Self-serve takeaway salad bars, November 1994.

The code aims to "provide national guidelines on the construction, operation and cleaning of self-serve takeaway salad bars and provide uniformity for equipment manufacturers and retailers who support and offer the service."

The code embraces the concept of HACCP and addresses:

• salad bar construction
• product restrictions
• cross contamination
• consumer control
• holding temperatures
• display containers
• cleaning
• staff supervision
• utensils
• customer storage

Self-serve takeaway salads potentially present more risks to food safety than:

• self-serve salads
• other potentially hazardous self-serve foods consumed at point of purchase
• prepacked or vendor served takeaway salads

This is due to the potential for contamination of the salads during display and serving with further risks associated with uncontrolled storage after purchase.