Tomato Handling

Key takeaways

Our research found that many restaurants did not follow Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advice on handling tomatoes. Restaurants can focus on controlling the temperature of tomatoes before holding, such as refrigerating tomatoes in all stages to ensure safe temperatures when tomatoes are cut. Or, they could use time and temperature control for food safetyA to keep cut tomatoes safe.

During inspections, environmental health specialists can look for poor tomato-handling practices and then help restaurant managers and workers fix them.

Why this is important

Several Salmonella foodborne illness outbreaks have been linked with fresh tomatoes. Investigations suggest that the tomatoes probably got tainted early, such as at the farm or during processing. In most cases, the tomatoes that caused the outbreaks were eaten in restaurants.

Researchers have suggested that how restaurant workers handle tomatoes may lead to germ growth on tomatoes. It may also spread germs from contaminated tomatoes to other tomatoes. To prevent foodborne illness caused by contaminated tomatoes, we wanted to find out how workers handle tomatoes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) offers the following advice to restaurants:

• Wash whole tomatoes properly (under running water, using warmer water than the tomatoes)
• If holding cut tomatoes above 41°F, do so for no more than 4 hours.
• Wear gloves to handle ready-to-eat food, such as cut tomatoes.

What we learned

We found that many restaurants did not follow FDA advice when handling tomatoes.

Restaurants:

• Did not wash tomatoes properly one of every five times
• Often (three out of four times) held cut tomatoes above 41°F for more than 4 hours
• Did not wear gloves one out of three times when cutting tomatoes

More information

• Journal article this plain language summary is based on
• More key findings on restaurant practices and from investigation data