News — kitchen hygiene

If you want the safest board for everyday home cooking, current food safety research suggests that a high quality wooden board is usually less likely to hold live bacteria after washing than a plastic board with deep knife scars. In simple terms, for most home kitchens, a well maintained wooden board is often the better choice for managing bacteria compared with a heavily worn plastic one. Wooden vs plastic cutting boards bacteria: what actually happens? When you slice chicken, chop onions or carve a roast, tiny bits of raw food and juice get into the surface of your board. The...

In standard kitchen colour coding, the chopping board for fish is blue. If you want to keep raw fish safely away from meat, cooked food and vegetables, you should use a blue cutting board every time you prepare fish or seafood. Why the fish chopping board is blue Commercial kitchens across the UK follow a simple colour code to reduce cross contamination. It is widely taught in food hygiene training and used in restaurants, schools and catering: Blue chopping board – raw fish and seafood Red chopping board – raw meat Yellow chopping board – cooked meat Green chopping board...

If you are wondering what the safest and most practical board is for raw meat, food safety research is clear: a dedicated, dishwasher safe plastic or wood fibre style board is usually easiest to keep sanitary for raw meat, while a thicker bamboo or hardwood board is better reserved for cooked meat and prep. In a typical home kitchen, using one plastic or wood fibre board for raw meat and a 45x35cm wooden board for everything else gives you a simple, low risk system you can stick to for 5 to 10 years. Plastic vs wood fibre cutting boards for...

If you want the best cutting board for raw chicken in the UK, a dedicated bamboo board around 45x35cm is ideal, and at Deer & Oak we recommend our 45x35cm Large Bamboo Board (DNO-BCB-LG, 1.8kg) as the primary board for handling raw chicken safely and comfortably. Why a dedicated board for raw chicken matters Raw chicken carries bacteria like Campylobacter and Salmonella, so the board you choose directly affects food safety. The safest setup is to keep one board only for raw meat and poultry, and a second for ready to eat foods. For most UK kitchens, a 45x35cm board...