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Correctly storing your fresh produce until it is ready to use entails more than just knowing the correct storage temperature. Almost every chef has fallen foul of odour-generating produce at some point in their career, when one fragrant fruit or vegetable can spoil another that it has been stored with, leading to wasted food that can soon eat into your restaurant profits.

To organise your produce storage to prevent odour absorption, you need to know which fruits, vegetables and meats cannot be stored together. There may be some surprises in the list on our poster below – have you been storing your produce incorrectly or have you always got it right?

To ensure that the odour-absorbing foods aren’t spoiled, they should be kept in different areas of your produce cooler or refrigerator from the odour-producing foods. Even better, use food storage containers with sealed lids such as those by Cambro, who offer a range of food containers, pans and boxes that help to extend the freshness of your produce by up to three days, as well as effectively separating foods that cannot be stored together. Don’t forget to save and print our poster to display in your kitchen for when you need a quick reminder of which foods should be stored separately!

Organising your refrigerator or cooler to keep your produce fresh

Poorly stored produce leads to poor profits – according to statistics supplied by Cambro, up to 10% of food purchased by full service restaurants is thrown out. That’s up to 49million lbs of food every day, and it could so easily be reduced just by reconsidering how that food is stored.

Storing odour-producing fruits and vegetables away from odour-absorbing food is important for preserving the flavours of food, but storing food at the incorrect temperature can compromise its integrity.

It’s logical to want to organise your kitchen’s refrigerator or cooler to have the items that you use most at the front, so they can be easily accessed, but this can be bad news for fresh produce that requires storage at a lower temperature. The front of your refrigerator or cooler is the warmest area, and of course the coldest part is at the back.

The ideal temperatures for storing your fresh produce

At the front of your commercial cooler or refrigerator, you should store cucumber, aubergine, peppers, avocado and red potatoes, as these benefit from warmer temperatures – between 4-7?C.

In the middle of the unit, at a temperature between 2-4?C, store green onions, butternut squash, sprouts and herbs.

And at the back where the temperature is coolest (between 1-2?C), store broccoli, cabbage, apples, celery, lettuce and asparagus.

On the other hand, there are some types of fresh produce that do not need to be refrigerated at all. Bananas, potatoes, tomatoes and onions can all be stored at an ambient room temperature, as long as that does not exceed 55?C.

Beware of ethylene gas in your refrigerator too – this substance is produced by most fruits and vegetables as it is part of the ripening process, but leafy vegetables such as broccoli and bananas are highly sensitive to it. So store them away from ethylene-producing vegetables like avocados, melons and apples, which should also be kept away from the blower in your cooler (if you have one) as this will move the gas around the unit further.

We hope you have found this information on the foods that you should never store together helpful – will you be re-arranging your restaurant food storage? Do you have any additional tips on reducing your restaurant food wastage to share? Leave us a comment below or tweet us @BunzlLockhart.


Comments

Lockhart Catering on 23 November 2016 3:22 AM

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