Having safely bought and prepared your packed lunch, it is equally important to store it correctly before you eat it. Sandwiches and rolls must be kept cool, so make sure you keep them in the fridge. If a fridge isn’t available, try to find the coolest possible place to store your food, well away from direct sunlight. Crisps and fruit do not need to be kept cool like sandwiches; in fact, keeping them separately is a good way to avoid having to open your lunchbox early if you want a snack.

Most people carry their packed lunch in a lunch box or polythene bag – this is fine. Keeping a cold drink or an ice pack in your lunch box will also help to keep food fresh. However, it is important to remember that lunchboxes should be thoroughly cleaned between uses and bags should not be used more than once. As with food itself, make sure you keep your lunch box or bag out of direct sunlight, in a cool, dry place.

By following simple rules like these, you’ll ensure the highest possible standards of food hygiene for you and your family.

When buying food, it is important to bear the principles of food hygiene and safety in mind. For example, try to leave buying chilled and frozen foods to the end of your shopping, to make sure it spends as little time out of the cold environment as possible. When transporting chilled and frozen goods home, make use of a cool bag to minimise the effect of leaving it in a warm car and store it away appropriately as soon as you get home. Make certain that you keep all raw foods and cooked foods separate; as I mentioned last time, cooking kills of most bacteria found in raw food – storing the two together can cause to prevent cross contamination of bacteria from the raw food to the cooked.

It doesn’t take a food safety course to know that it is important to pay attention to use-by and best-before dates. If you do all your shopping in one trip, try to organise your weekly meals around them and, when preparing food to eat at a later date, make certain this date falls within the use-by date as well.

Be they businessmen, plumbers or school children, huge amounts of people have a home-prepared packed lunch for their midday meal.  This is good news; making your food at home can be a much healthier alternative to ready-prepared sandwiches or meals in shops.  However, in terms of food safety, the more people there are making meals, the higher the chances that people are going to start falling ill due to a lack of understanding of the basic principles behind food hygiene.  In the next few posts I will cover some advice that will help you make your packed lunch safely and hygienically.

To start with, it is vital to understand that bacteria are everywhere and all food contains them.  Normally, cooking food kills off harmful bacteria, making it safe to eat; however, the kind of food you put in your packed lunch is normally cold and doesn’t require cooking.  For this reason, when making a packed lunch, it is more important than ever to ensure you take all precautions to minimise the amount of bacteria .