Food Safety and Your Bottom Line

The quality of your ingredients directly influences the success of your establishment. When your menu consists of fresh, safely prepared cuisine, your customers will return again and again to enjoy yet another meal.

You play a major role in the quality of your menu items, but food safety starts long before the product reaches your kitchen. That's where we come in. We at US Foods partner with our beef suppliers to provide the safest products possible from the very beginning. When you buy from us, you can be sure that we follow stringent requirements, including:

• Ensure the cattle are not fed animal by-products or other banned substances
• Prohibit the processing of nonmobile animals
• Only purchase bone-in products from animals less than 30 months of age
• Never use products from mechanically separated or advanced meat recovery (AMR) systems or processes
• Require that our suppliers handle and slaughter animals humanely
• Require all suppliers have mandatory federal USDA inspections, operate under a HACCP plan to prevent or eliminate E. coli contamination, and that these systems be verified though an approved certification audit
• Require every distribution center have at least two HACCP certified managers on staff
• Store all raw meat items separate from ready-to-eat items
• Rely on strong cold-chain management to protect the integrity of all beef shipments to our customers
  

A Few Safe-Handling Tips

Once the product arrives in your kitchen — and you know it's safely sourced, you can take extra steps to ensure you're serving customers the safest possible product.

• Always wash hands with soap and warm water before and after handling raw meat, poultry and seafood.
• If possible, use one cutting board for raw meat, poultry and seafood and another one for fresh fruits and vegetables.
• Wash cutting boards thoroughly with soap and hot water to sanitize between uses.
• Don't remove items from the refrigerator until you are ready to prepare them. Doing so could bring the products' temperature into the danger zone (between 41ºF and 120ºF) and allow bacteria to grow.
• Always marinate foods under refrigeration, never reuse marinades and throw out leftover marinades used on raw meat, poultry or seafood.
• Don't cross-contaminate cooked products with raw products. Make sure the juices from raw meat and poultry do not contaminate cooked or ready-to-eat products.
• Don't use the same plates or utensils for raw products on cooked products.
• Cook all meats to an internal temperature of 155ºF for 15 seconds and poultry items to165ºF for 15 seconds. To get an accurate temperature, always use a thermometer.
• Don't allow cooked meats to stay unrefrigerated for long periods of time.