The safe production of beef burgers in catering establishments

Long standing advice from the FSA, based on recommendations from the Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF), is that beef burgers should always be thoroughly cooked all the way through, reaching a temperature of 70⁰C for 2 minutes or equivalent in the middle of the burger.

This advice is in place because although contamination of whole cuts of beef tends to be on the outside of meat, the slicing/chopping/mincing of raw meat will spread any bacteria present on the surface of the meat throughout the resulting minced products such as burgers. If harmful bacteria are present in the middle of the burger and that part of the burger is not cooked, bacteria may survive and be able to cause illness.

However, the time and temperature for cooking is not specifically a legal requirement and food businesses can serve burgers that are either pink in the middle and/or are not thoroughly cooked all the way through provided that they can demonstrate that they have controlled the risks in other ways as part of their HACCP-based procedures. This can be achieved in a number of ways:

• Cooking to a lower temperature for longer – meaning the burgers remains pink but the centre reaches a temperature equivalent to 70⁰C for 2 minutes
• Searing the outside of meat to destroy contamination prior to mincing meat and forming it in to burger patties
• Use of novel techniques including lactic acid in slaughterhouses to reduce surface contamination of meat, use of sous vide cooking, and use of high pressure processing
• Putting in place controls throughout the supply chain to reduce and/or minimise contamination of meat, followed by less thorough cooking, but still cooking to a core temperature which can be demonstrated to achieve a significant reduction in the final product

This advice provides more details on the updated FSA position on the service of burgers that are less than thoroughly cooked and those that appear to be less than thoroughly cooked. It details how the different options described in this summary can be applied by food businesses and the role that Local Authorities will play in verifying that the HACCP-based controls and procedures put in place are appropriate.

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