Issues Identified in Sous Vide Style Cooking in Restaurants That Led to Development of Guidelines for Chefs and Health Inspectors in British Columbia, Canada

Introduction: Sous vide (fr.) means under vacuum. Sous vide style cooking of vacuum packaged foods is typically done in a water immersion circulator for longer times and lower temperatures than conventionally cooked foods. Widely used in food manufacturing, this technique has become mainstream in restaurants. However, questions about safe cooking temperatures and observed practices were a shared concern of chefs and health inspectors in British Columbia (BC), Canada.

Purpose: Our purpose was to examine sous vide practice safety and create guidelines for chefs and inspectors that would address food safety issues.

Methods: A working group was established to develop food safety guidance using a consensus driven approach. Student projects were conducted in restaurants under the mentorship of chefs and supervisors that illuminated safety issues with this food preparation technique.

Results: Some of the issues identified during discussions and student projects included (1) existing times and temperatures in guidelines and regulations did not address sous vide style cooking; (2) sous vide cooking and finishing steps did not meet log reduction objectives for Salmonella; and (3) practices in restaurants such as adding cold pouched foods to immersion circulators already in use adversely affect water temperature recovery. The working group developed guidelines, released in September 2014, to explain food safety issues associated with sous vide style cooking.  The guidelines provide food flow charts, CCPs, time and temperature requirements and guidance for creating and evaluating food safety plans, creating shared expectations for sous vide style cooking between chefs and inspectors.

Significance: The importance of describing both the process come-up-time and process lethality (described as equilibrium and hold-at-temperature cooking by chefs), addressed a significant gap in our food safety knowledge of sous vide style cooking. BC chefs and inspectors are actively applying the guidelines.