Safety experts have fought off a challenge from a US fast food chain to relax advice to consumers, caterers and manufacturers on the cooking of burgers.
At its June meeting, the Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF) endorsed a report, which recommended retaining the advice to cook burgers and minced beef products at 70°C for two minutes to ensure that any E.coli O157 contamination of raw meat is neutralised. ACMSF is a group of food safety experts, which advises the Food Standards Agency.
The ACMSF research was commissioned in response to pressure from a US fast food restaurant chain to relax the advice introduced by the chief medical officer in 1998 on the safe cooking of burgers. It is common in the US, and increasingly within some gastro burger bars in the UK, for beef burgers to be served rare.
The US chain had claimed that the recommendations to cook such products at 70°C for two minutes were “more stringent than was necessary” and resulted in overcooking with a deterioration in quality.
In contrast the ACMSF ad hoc group, which was chaired by Professor Peter Williams and drew up the report, felt the original safety advice remained sound. However, it left the door slightly ajar by stating that: “Use of lower time/temperature combinations could be considered where producers demonstrate through a risk assessment approach that the final product is safe, and that the process is under effective control.”