Storage Temperature Records

If you are storing produce in freezers or indeed fridges, there a few simple rules. 

In freezers it is wise and legally required to keep temperature records. Probably not daily, but certainly weekly. A kitchen probe or inexpensive freezer thermometer will do the job. Just write the date and temperature and keen your notes for 12 months.

Produce rotation is also a cool plan (Pun intended). Upright freezers are easy to manage. Chest freezers perhaps less so. 3 months is regarded as the reasonable storage time for items which were frozen on date. So when adding new produce it’s a great idea to move the existing items to the top in a chest freezer so that they are used first.

It’s also a good idea to stick a label on each item with “Frozen on” and the date. 

Nobody wants to receive a freezer burned chop which might be 6 years old!

Clearly we work on a rapid turn around generally. But I do know of a Turkey I delivered 4 years ago which is still loitering in a freezer. We’re not keen on Turkey, but even in we were very short of money I’m not sure we’d be in any way inclined to defrost and eat that monster now!