If you’ve worked in a kitchen long enough, you already know that food can be your best friend… or your worst enemy. Some foods are just ticking time bombs; all it takes is a few degrees off, a missed check, or a little too much chaos on the line, and boom: you’ve got a food safety nightmare on your hands.
So, let’s talk about the top five most dangerous foods, the ones that have kept food safety regulators up at night, and how you can keep your kitchen out of the danger zone.
Yeah, no surprises here. Raw chicken and mince are basically bacteria playgrounds. Salmonella, campylobacter, e. coli - the gang’s all here.
The risk? Not cooking to temperature, or letting those raw juices make friends with your ready-to-eat food.
Chomp tip: Use your probes, clean your boards, and keep raw and cooked zones separate. And, make sure your team logs cooking and cooling temperature checks; it’s the only way you'll pass your audit.
Delicious? Absolutely. Dangerous? You bet. Shellfish and raw seafood can carry marine toxins, vibrio, or norovirus, not exactly the special of the day you want to serve.
The risk skyrockets if seafood isn’t kept icy cold or comes from dodgy suppliers.
Chomp tip: Keep seafood below 5°C, buy from verified suppliers, and log your deliveries and temperature checks properly (yes, we’re looking at you, the I'll-remember-it-later clipboard).
Soft cheeses, unpasteurised milk, creamy desserts, they’re all luxury until listeria shows up to crash the party. It loves to hang out in chilled environments, which makes it especially sneaky.
Chomp tip: Always check your source. Avoid unpasteurised dairy, and double down on date checks. If your food safety app has temperature alerts and expiry logs, you’re already ahead of the curve (fun fact: Chomp has automated fridge loggers you might be interested in).
Raw eggs can carry salmonella, and they’re the hidden villain behind many outbreaks. Think aioli, hollandaise, mousse, tiramisu, the fancy stuff that can cause big trouble if not handled right.
Chomp tip: Use pasteurised eggs wherever you can, keep egg-based dishes refrigerated, and note your prep times. Your food safety plan should help you stay on top of time/temperature controls so those silky sauces stay safe.
This one surprises people, but cooked rice and pasta are some of the most common causes of foodborne illness globally. Once cooked, they can host bacillus cereus, a nasty little spore-forming bacteria that survives heat and multiplies fast if food cools too slowly.
Chomp tip: Cool cooked foods quickly and in a controlled way (down to below 5°C within 2 hours), store them properly, and reheat to at least 75°C. The Chomp system will prompt these checks and save you from that “did anyone record this?” panic.
Pre-cut salads, fruit, and ready-to-eat meals are also risky, not because they’re raw, but because they’ve been handled, sliced, and stored. Every touch is a contamination opportunity.
The food itself isn’t out to get you, it’s the gaps in the process that can cause trouble. The kitchens that get caught out aren’t careless; they’re just busy.
That’s why a digital food safety tool is not only a compliance tool, it’s your sous-chef for safety! It helps you track tasks, log checks, and get reminders when something slips. It takes the “I think we did it” out of your day and replaces it with “we know we did.”
Learn how Chomp’s digital food safety tool keeps your kitchen safe, audit-ready and can save you time over paper logs.