1Implementing Active Managerial Control12.5%
Active managerial control means the manager prevents problems instead of reacting to them: identifying the risks in the operation, setting procedures, training staff, checking that the procedures are followed, correcting them when they are not, and confirming that the whole system works. Expect scenarios that ask what the manager should do or should already have in place. A food safety management system such as HACCP uses the same logic: find the points where a hazard can be controlled, set a limit, monitor it, act when it is missed, and keep records.
- 1.1Put active managerial control into practice so that food safety risks in the operation are managed proactively (10 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Mixing up the steps. Monitoring is checking a limit while the work is being done. Corrective action is what happens when the limit is missed. Verification is confirming afterward that the system is working. An option can describe a perfectly sensible action that belongs to a different step from the one the question asks about. Watch too for the reactive answer: throwing food away after a failure is a correction, and the question may be asking what would have prevented it.
2Managing Personnel11.3%
The people who handle food. Personal hygiene, when and how hands are washed, glove use, work clothing, and above all employee health: which symptoms and diagnoses a food handler must report, and what the manager must then do. It also covers training staff and making sure the training is followed on the floor.
- 2.1Manage staff so that the people who handle food do so safely (9 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Restriction against exclusion. A restricted employee may still work, but not with exposed food, clean equipment, utensils or linens, or unwrapped single-service articles. An excluded employee may not work in the operation or enter it as an employee. Which one applies depends on the symptom or diagnosis and, for some conditions, on whether the operation serves a highly susceptible population; learn the Food Code's list condition by condition. Also remember that gloves do not replace handwashing: hands are washed before gloves go on.
3Addressing Allergen Issues10%
Know the major food allergens named in the FDA Food Code; the 2022 edition added sesame as the ninth. Know how cross-contact is prevented in storage, preparation and service, how staff should answer a guest's question about ingredients, what labels must show, and what to do when a guest has a reaction.
- 3.1Deal with food allergen issues in the operation to protect guests with allergies (8 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Treating cross-contact like cross-contamination. The controls for an allergen are separation and thorough cleaning, so that the allergen never reaches the food. Do not assume that a step which controls pathogens, such as cooking, also deals with an allergen, or that lifting the offending item off the plate does. Older study material lists eight major allergens, so check the count in whatever you are using.
4Purchasing, Receiving, and Storing Practices6.3%
Food on its way in. Buying from approved, reputable suppliers; checking a delivery for temperature, packaging and condition, and knowing when to reject it; labeling and date-marking what is stored; rotating stock so the oldest is used first; and the order in which food is shelved in a cooler.
- 4.1Apply safe practices when buying, receiving and storing food (5 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Cooler storage order. The Food Code requires raw animal foods to be kept apart from ready-to-eat food and from each other. On shared shelves that is done by cooking temperature: ready-to-eat food above raw food, and the food that needs the highest cooking temperature, poultry, lowest. Questions describe a shelf arrangement and ask what is wrong with it. This area is only 5 questions, so learn the receiving criteria and the storage order and move on.
5Preparing Foods20%
The largest area: a fifth of the scored exam. It follows food through thawing, preparation, cooking, cooling and reheating. Know the approved ways to thaw, the minimum internal cooking temperature for each category of food, how to use and calibrate a thermometer, how cross-contamination between raw and ready-to-eat food is prevented during preparation, and the rules for cooling and reheating food that will be held.
- 5.1Keep food safe while it is being prepared (16 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Figures attached to the wrong step. The minimum temperature a food must be cooked to, the temperature it must be held hot at, and the temperature it must be reheated to are three separate requirements, and the options will mix their figures. Cooling is a two-stage requirement: a time limit for the first drop in temperature and an overall limit counted from the start, so learn both. Learn each figure with its food and its step, never as a bare list.
6Serving Foods10%
Food on its way out. Holding hot and cold food for service and checking it, using time in place of temperature as the control and the conditions that come with that, handling ready-to-eat food without bare hands, utensils and tableware, protecting self-service areas, and what may and may not be served again.
- 6.1Keep food safe while it is being served (8 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Time as a control. When time is used in place of temperature, the food is marked to show its time limit, and whatever has not been served by then is discarded, not put back under temperature control. The Food Code also requires written procedures for it. Re-serving is the other trap: know which items may go out to another guest and which may not.
7Cleaning and Sanitizing8.8%
Cleaning removes soil; sanitizing reduces pathogens on a surface that is already clean. Know the order of the steps, what makes a sanitizer effective (its concentration, the contact time, and the temperature, pH and hardness of the water), how a three-compartment sink is set up, how dish machines are checked, when a food-contact surface has to be cleaned and sanitized, and how chemicals are stored.
- 7.1Clean and sanitize correctly throughout the operation (7 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Sequence. A surface is cleaned and rinsed, then sanitized, then left to air-dry. Options that sanitize first or dry with a towel are wrong. Concentration has to be measured, not judged by eye, which is why a test kit is required.
8Managing Establishment Facilities15%
The building and its systems, and at 12 questions the second-largest area. Safe water and plumbing, handwashing stations and what each must have, equipment that is designed and installed so it can be cleaned, floors, walls and ceilings, lighting, ventilation, garbage handling and pest management.
- 8.1Manage the establishment's facilities so that they support food safety (12 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Under-studying it. It is easy to prepare for a food exam and skip the building, yet this area has more questions than allergens, than serving, or than cleaning and sanitizing. Learn the plumbing terms. A cross-connection is a physical link between the drinking water system and water that is not safe to drink, and backflow is contamination moving back through it. The Food Code accepts two protections: an air gap, or an approved backflow prevention device. On pests, the Food Code starts with prevention: inspecting deliveries and the premises, and removing the conditions that shelter pests.
9Responding to Crises6.3%
What a manager does when something has already gone wrong: a suspected foodborne illness outbreak, or an emergency that threatens food safety such as an extended power failure, a fire, a flood, a sewage backup or the loss of water. Know when service has to stop, who has to be told, and what has to be true before the operation reopens.
- 9.1Respond correctly when a crisis threatens food safety in the operation (5 scored questions).
Where people lose points: Options that keep the operation running. When an emergency creates an imminent health hazard, a sewage backup or an extended loss of water for example, the Food Code requires the permit holder to stop operations immediately and notify the regulatory authority. Carrying on carefully without telling the authority is the wrong answer. A suspected outbreak is on the Food Code's list of such emergencies, so expect the right answer to involve notifying the regulatory authority and cooperating with it.