Article 18, paragraph 5 of the Regulation states the ban first: products that could allow pathogens to grow are not held at risky temperatures and the cold chain is not broken. The permission is in the second sentence: for preparation, transport, storage, display and service, products may be kept at ambient temperature for limited periods, provided no health risk arises. The text contains no figure.
We set out step by step how a line that reaches lunch service on time is built on our ready-meal distribution page.
The procedure carries the number. Article 22 requires the HACCP procedure to set critical limits separating acceptable from unacceptable, effective monitoring and corrective action, and time at ambient temperature is exactly such a limit. The basis is the product label, a risk assessment and a trial with the real load arrangement. The record is built from two times, removal from refrigeration and return to controlled conditions, plus logger ID, position, raw data, device clock and the door, wait and transfer events. A logger measures air, so the label limit is compared with a product-core result.
Once the period is exceeded the effect does not stay with one container: under Article 21 of Law 5996, if part of a batch is unsafe and the rest cannot be shown to be safe, the whole batch is treated as unsafe.
