Food - Drink
How Do Supermarket Butchers Keep The Displayed Meat Fresh?
By SANDY BAKER
According to the CDC, 48 million people in the U.S. are infected by foodborne illness yearly, which may make you wary of meat and seafood products. However, meat manufacturers and grocery stores have quite a few strategies for keeping meat fresh and safe to eat, and this is how most supermarket butchers maintain their stock.
Firstly, butchers pay close attention to sanitation practices when preparing meat. They monitor the temperature of their refrigerators to keep them properly cold, and each type of meat has its own cutting boards, saws, and grinders to be used when butchering, to prevent cross-contamination between products.
Butchers keep all their equipment and surfaces sanitized, following strict sanitation routines throughout the day, and limit human contact with the meat as much as possible, only cutting custom cuts when it's a request from the customer. They also don't display too much of their stock, which means less risk of cross-contamination.