8 Supermarket Food Safety Best Practices for Store Owners

Food safety is all over the news. From the cyclospora outbreak that infected thousands of bags of shredded lettuce and greens, to the 30,000 pounds of recalled ground beef, food safety issues are at the forefront of people’s minds as they shop for groceries this year.

This makes it more important than ever to stay on top of food safety issues and prepare your business.

In this article, we’ll go over the key things you need to know about supermarket food safety, like:

• Eight best supermarket food safety best practices
• What causes supermarket food safety issues
• The costs of neglecting food safety

Let’s get started.

Supermarket Food Safety: 8 Best Practices

Many food safety issues originate from higher up on the supermarket supply chain and aren’t directly the store’s fault. But that doesn’t mean supermarkets shouldn’t worry about them at all.

A single food safety issue addressed poorly can ruin a store’s reputation, especially if the store is a neighborhood supermarket.

Here are eight tips to prevent and handle food safety issues at your supermarket.

1. Sanitize Surfaces and Fridges Regularly

Common supermarket food safety issues boil down to one simple thing: hygiene. When surfaces and appliances aren’t cleaned regularly, the possibility of harmful bacteria growing exponentially increases. This is especially true in areas where food is out in the open, like the butcher or deli, or for ready-to-eat items.

To stay on top of this, create a cleaning schedule and follow it religiously. Clean reach-in fridges at least once a week, removing all food items. Butcher and deli cases should be cleaned daily.

Related Read: 4 Strategies for Grocery Store Employee Management

You should also schedule a deep clean at least once a quarter, including clearing drain lines, vacuuming condenser coils, and cleaning ice makers.

Last, clean checkout scales, conveyors, self-checkout stations, and other areas that regularly have food on them.

Regular cleaning also helps you:

• Spot mechanical issues. Cleaning and emptying your fridges can help you notice other maintenance issues more easily.
• Improve smell. Fridges that aren’t cleaned regularly can start to smell bad, which is bad news for customers and staff alike.
• Reduce energy costs. When appliances are clean and maintained, it improves their efficiency and reduces the chance of them breaking down.

Having a consistent cleaning schedule goes a long way in preventing cross-contamination and other food safety hazards.

2. Overcommunicate With Customers

Many foodborne illnesses aren’t your fault. You won’t know that a certain brand of eggs or a particular spinach crop is bad until the FDA announces it, which could be weeks after it was stocked and sold on your shelves.

The sad reality, though, is that many customers will still place a certain amount of blame on the store where they bought the affected item. To get in front of this, you need to overcommunicate.

Use your newsletter or social media to announce outbreaks and give customers clear instructions on how to identify and handle bad merchandise. Proactive communication helps you build trust in your store and give your customers helpful information.

Consider offering discounts or compensation for spoiled products out of your control. While this won’t recoup the costs of the original item, it builds goodwill with customers.

If there’s a big news story that certain products are unsafe, people may be overly cautious and avoid them altogether — even when the products in your store aren’t affected. This is why it’s a good idea to proactively assure people your products are safe, educating them about your suppliers and which products they should avoid.

3. Have a Recall or Outbreak Plan

A product recall or outbreak is always messy, but it’s even worse when stores lack a solid plan of action or a clear view of what products they sell.

Your food recall or outbreak plan should include:

• Who handles each task (e.g., tracing supply and sales, contacting suppliers, taking items off the shelves, etc.)
• A communication plan including email, SMS, and signage
• A clear return policy for affected items

This ensures you and your staff can respond efficiently when issues arise.

A comprehensive inventory management system is also essential for effectively responding to supermarket food safety issues. This allows you to quickly search for affected products, identify suppliers, and see how many were sold.

If you aren’t 100% sure your stock is part of a food outbreak, your only choice is to throw it away.

4. Cook and Store Food at the Correct Temperatures

Perishable food items are like ticking time bombs. The minute they arrive at your store, they have a limited shelf life. When food isn’t stored at the right temperature, it increases food waste and creates potential food safety hazards.

All refrigerators containing perishable foods should maintain a temperature of 40 degrees or below. Most commercial refrigerators have a built-in thermometer to measure the temperature at any given time.

Finally, keep in mind that different foods have different safe storage times and temperatures. Track expiration dates on your inventory management system to ensure that items aren’t sitting on shelves or in freezers past their sell-by dates.

If your power goes out, don’t panic! The FDA advises that perishable food in refrigerators is safe if power is out for less than four hours and the doors remain closed.

If you run a hot bar or quick-service restaurant (QSR) attached to your supermarket, you should also make sure food is cooked to the correct temperatures. If you have cooked meals made in advance, they should be warmed to 140 degrees or more, not stored at room temperature.

5. Avoid Cross Contamination

Another common source of foodborne illnesses is cross-contamination. This is caused when harmful bacteria from one type of food spreads to another. This can happen in a few ways:

• Food-to-food: If you store produce in a refrigerator near raw meat, the produce could touch the meat and become cross-contaminated.
• Person-to-food: If food isn’t handled correctly, harmful bacteria can grow. For example, if employees don’t wash their hands before stocking produce or before serving customers at the deli counter.
• Equipment-to-food: Failure to clean your display fridges, meat slicers, or other equipment can cause cross-contamination.

To mitigate these problems:

• Store raw meat and other items separately.
• Ensure packaging is airtight and does not leak.
• Separate different types of meat in each refrigerator case.
• Make sure employees stocking shelves (especially for produce, meat, and ready-to-eat items) wash their hands regularly, use gloves, and follow other food safety best practices.

Yes, being overly cautious about cross-contamination might add time to certain processes. Trust us: It’s well worth it.

6. Use the FIFO Method

The first in, first out (FIFO) method is a stocking process where the items you acquire first are the ones you put out to sell first.

For example, say you regularly buy meat from a farmer who delivers to you on Monday and Wednesday. Using the FIFO method, you’ll sell all of the meat you received on Monday before putting out the meat from Wednesday.

The FIFO method is best practice for managing perishable inventory like produce and meat. It minimizes the risk of items spoiling and allows you to store new items safely until they’re ready for sale.

The FIFO method is best used in conjunction with an inventory management system, so you can simultaneously track the arrival and expiration dates of different products.

7. Use Trustworthy Suppliers

Next, make sure you work with trustworthy suppliers that prioritize food safety. Providers should have a HACCP system, ISO 22000, or SQF certifications.

Not every small local farmer or food supplier can afford specific food safety certifications. However, asking them about their food safety practices and food recall plans can't hurt. A competent food supplier should have no problem answering basic questions.

If they can’t, you might want to rethink your partnership. If a food outbreak does occur, see how each supplier handles it or if it tends to occur more frequently with products from one supplier than another.

8. Pick and Prepare Food Properly for Shipments and Pickup

If you sell your food online and ship either locally or nationally, there are extra food safety concerns to account for. This is true for local pickups, too, since items might be picked and set aside hours before a customer comes to get them.

For shipment:

• Use insulated packing materials that keep perishable food cold while they sit in a truck for delivery, and use cold packs or dry ice to keep items cool.
• Set up a system to prepare shipments just before they go out. You don’t want packages sitting out all day before they’re picked up.
• Be extra careful about cross-contamination, and consider vacuum sealing and double-packing meat. It’s easier to avoid cross contamination on your shelves than it is in a small box.

For pickup:

• Set a clear pickup window for customers so orders aren’t being prepared too far in advance.
• Have separate storage areas for different types of items in every order: freezer for frozen meats and ice cream, refrigerator for produce and drinks, room temp for certain produce and shelf-stable. Then, combine the order when the customer arrives.

What Are the Main Causes of Supermarket Food Safety Problems?

The FDA defines an outbreak as when two or more people get the same illness from the same food. Because foodborne illnesses can take a while to test, many become widespread before they’re proven. Supermarket food safety issues usually come in two varieties.

The first is a sanitation or hygiene issue within the store itself. For example, you might store a large amount of meat or produce improperly and then sell it to unwitting consumers. Or, there might be cross-contamination within the deli, and the entire store has to shut down.

The second (and most common) category is also the most notorious: problems at the manufacturing or processing stage of the supermarket supply chain. Even though it’s usually a large commercial farm or manufacturer at fault for contaminated items, it’s typically the grocery stores and restaurants where people buy them that get hit hardest.

Even outbreaks that are nationwide news stories may only affect a small region or specific stores. But once news breaks, many customers become overly cautious, leading to decreased sales and certain (perfectly good) products going to waste.

The more you stay educated about food safety best practices, the more confidently you can handle and prevent them.

Remember: Even if an issue like a recall isn’t your fault, it is your responsibility to handle it.

The Cost of Neglecting Supermarket Food Safety

Although experts disagree on the exact economic impact of supermarket food safety issues, almost everyone agrees that it is not good.

Here are some of the most significant costs that come from neglecting supermarket food safety:

• Loss of trust: A poorly handled food recall or safety issue can irrevocably damage a grocery store's reputation. People will shop elsewhere.
• Immediate financial loss: Foodborne outbreaks are extremely costly for supermarkets, with costs mounting up in the form of lost sales, added labor, and more. A grocerant or fast-casual restaurant can spend between $4000 and $2 million on a single food safety issue.
• Long-term financial loss: Even after a recall is ordered and products are safe, consumer spending for certain items may plummet due to an abundance of caution or lost confidence in a store or brand.
• Compliance issues and fines: If a supermarket knowingly sells food linked to a food outbreak or unsafe food it prepares, it violates food safety laws and is subject to fines, legal action, or even store closure.

The bottom line: Correcting a food safety problem is much more costly than preventing one. The more proactive you are about preventing foodborne illnesses and educating customers, the better.

Increase Visibility and Prevent Supermarket Food Safety Issues With IT Retail

Implementing the above best practices and taking a more proactive approach to supermarket food safety helps you maintain customer trust, speed up reaction time, and stop problems before they happen.

One of the most impactful (and easiest) things you can do to keep on top of food safety at your supermarket is to implement the right technology.

IT Retail was specifically designed by grocers for small grocery stores and supermarkets. It offers inventory management, employee management, prebuilt reports, and other useful tools to help you stay safe and prevent waste.

Schedule a demo today to speak with one of our supermarket experts.