News — food safety

If you are wondering whether bamboo is the best cutting board material for keeping bacteria under control, studies suggest that hard, dense bamboo such as moso bamboo can reduce live bacteria by around 90–99% within 24 hours when cleaned correctly, performing at least as well as plastic and often closer to traditional hardwoods. In other words, a well maintained bamboo board is a very safe everyday choice for raw meat, fish and vegetables in a home kitchen. What studies show about bacteria survival on bamboo cutting boards Several laboratory studies have looked at how bacteria like E. coli, Salmonella and...

If you clean them properly after every use, high quality wooden chopping boards are usually more hygienic than plastic boards over their full lifespan, because bacteria die off up to 3 times faster in the first 3 hours on well maintained wood compared with heavily scored plastic. The safest option for most home kitchens is a set of 2 or 3 wooden boards used separately for raw meat, cooked food and fruit or veg, and washed within 10 minutes of use. Wood vs plastic chopping boards: what actually keeps bacteria away? The key hygiene question is simple: where do bacteria...

If you are wondering why chefs use colour coded chopping boards in the UK, the short answer is food safety: using at least 4 different boards (for example red for raw meat, blue for fish, green for vegetables and yellow for cooked foods) can cut cross contamination risk dramatically and help you meet UK Food Standards Agency guidance in a busy kitchen. Why do chefs use colour coded chopping boards in the UK? Professional chefs in the UK use colour coded chopping boards to control bacteria, stay compliant with food hygiene rules and work faster on busy services. Each colour...

If you want the best chopping board for raw meat hygiene in the UK, choose a dedicated, non porous board that never touches ready to eat food. In the Deer & Oak range, the Carbonised Bamboo Board 45x35cm (DNO-CBB-LG), used solely for raw meat and cleaned correctly after every use, gives the best balance of hygiene, size and knife friendliness for most British kitchens. What makes a chopping board hygienic for raw meat? Raw chicken, pork and mince can carry bacteria like Campylobacter and Salmonella, so your chopping board needs to help you control that risk every single day. In...