High risk food in summer time - ice cream!

2017-05-06

Ice cream is one of the most favourite snacks in summer time. Since these food are usually made with raw materials without prior heat treatment, bacterial contamination is at high risk. Diarrhoeae, bacteriaemia and organ failure due to infecton may be resulted if high number of bacteria or very "pathogenic" bacteria are taken into the body with food. Salmonella, Listeria are amongst the important name to note. Although there were no report of serious complications due to food poisoning last year, there were still a couple of reports of food production with unsatisfactory hygiene condition and certain bacterial count were even over the allowable limits.


There are increasing number of dessert cafe/mini stores opened in the recent years. Many of them are using fresh produces without additives which increase the risk of bacteria contamination. Fruits and vegatables can harbour Salmonella while tea/coffee bean/dried fruits may contain mould or their toxins which are important risk of food poisoning. There could be in occassions that small business are not afforded for food hygiene programme. Even worse is that some web store are selling these cold confections without appropriate licence which are dangerous in terms of food quality management.


To minimize risk of food poisioning, food manufacturer or retails must keeping good hygiene programme including safety management, regular food test as well as purchasing ingredients from reputable vendors.