Consumers get food in many ways. They can purchase their food from a convenience store, grocery store, or supermarket, grow or raise their own food, or receive food through a food pantry or other hunger relief program when needed. Often, an individual consumer will have access to more food than they can eat in a day and so it will need to be stored until it is used. This publication will address how you can safely store your food for optimal quality until you are ready to use and consume it.

El proceso para envasar alimentos en casa o conservas caseras, depende de la acidez del alimento, lo cual se determina por su pH. Los alimentos de baja acidez tienen un pH más grande que 4.6, y los alimentos de alta acidez tienen un pH menos que 4.6. En general, los vegetales (verduras o hortalizas) y carnes son alimentos de baja acidez, y las frutas son alimentos alta acidez. Los alimentos de alta acidez pueden procesarse de manera segura por agua hirviendo, pero los alimentos de baja acidez se deben procesar en una olla a presión para conservas.

This publication is a guide to selling raw, processed, and prepared food products from your home, at farmers’ markets, stores, and roadside stands. This guide will detail the answers to those questions, which vary depending on the type of food product and preparation process used. All food producers should follow the relevant good manufacturing practices (for example, those outlined in 21 CFR 114 and/or 21 CFR 117). This guide includes information related to meat, poultry, dairy, seafood, crustacean, shellfish, produce, maple syrup, honey, eggs, baked goods, jams, preserves, jellies, fruit butters, acidified canned foods, dehydrated foods, packaged refrigerated or frozen foods, kombucha, juice, pet treats, samples, time and temperature controlled for safety foods, and food service vendors.

When you are volunteering as a Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Food Volunteer or as a volunteer for other Family and Consumer Sciences programs, you may have the opportunity to share what you learn with others by giving a foods demonstration. Talking in front of a group of friends and other volunteers can be a little scary at first, but with planning and practice, you will be able to give a foods demonstration with ease.

A good demonstration can motivate others to try new fruits and vegetables, eat more servings of them, and prepare them more nutritionally. Before you present a farmers market demonstration, check with the local market manager and/or health department for current regulations. Next, pull out the old razzle-dazzle and leave your audience so star struck, they will come back to the farmers market for more! This demonstration activity can be used by adults and older youth.

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The majority of the milk and dairy products sold in the United States are pasteurized, which means they go through a heat process that kills harmful bacteria (e.g., Salmonella, E. coli, Campylobacter, etc.) that can be found in unpasteurized (raw) milk. Pasteurization not only improves the safety of the milk but also lengthens its shelf life.

This fact sheet describes what food safety hazards are, who is required to conduct a hazard analysis, the purpose of hazard analysis, why conducting a hazard analysis is important, the components of a hazard analysis, resources to help evaluate hazards, and a novel worksheet to guide a food producer through the hazard analysis process.

The Hazard Analysis Worksheet to go along with Writing a Food Safety Plan: Resources for Conducting a Hazard Analysis (FST-474).

Washing produce is an important step to keeping your family healthy. Since produce is grown in close contact with the ground, bacterial contamination may be introduced from animals, soil, and water. Produce may also be handled as it moves through the supply chain to the consumer. Washing produce can remove potential bacterial contamination or soil. It can be hard to know how and when to wash your produce, and there is a lot of information out there, so this publication provides important considerations to think about (a guide to help).

You can help your community by hosting or donating to a share pantry. This guide offers best practices for providing safe and quality food to your neighbors who are experiencing hunger.

Salmonella contamination in dry and low-moisture food processing environments is a food safety concern recognized by the FDA. For a microorganism to grow in a food processing environment, there must be enough available moisture for the organism to use. In a dry or low-moisture processing environment, there are typically not enough consistent sources of moisture for microorganisms to grow; however, Salmonella has shown the ability to adapt to this low-moisture stress and survive for long periods of time through accumulation of osmoprotectants, up-regulation of outer membrane porins, alteration of gene expression, rRNA degradation, entering a viable but not culturable state, filamentation, and biofilm formation.