Food storage temperatures for a pizzeria: the chart and the rules
In the UK, chilled food must be kept at 8 °C or below, and the Food Standards Agency recommends running fridges at 5 °C or below. Frozen food goes at −18 °C, hot food is held at 63 °C or above, and anything cooked to serve later should be cooled within 90 minutes.
Why those numbers
Between roughly 8 and 63 °C, most food-poisoning bacteria multiply, and near body temperature some double in about twenty minutes. Cold slows them down without killing them, and holding above 63 °C stops them growing. Every temperature rule below comes back to the same idea: spend as little time in that range as possible, and be able to show you did.
The 8 °C and 63 °C limits come from the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, with equivalent rules in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Where a manufacturer’s label asks for a lower temperature, the label wins.
The storage temperature chart
| Food | Temperature | In a pizzeria |
|---|---|---|
| Chilled food (legal limit) | 8 °C or below | Everything on the prep counter |
| Chilled food (recommended) | 5 °C or below | Mozzarella, ham, cooked chicken |
| Raw mince and fresh fish | As cold as possible, 0 – 4 °C | Beef topping, prawns, anchovies |
| Frozen food | −18 °C or below | Buffer stock, desserts |
| Hot holding | 63 °C or above | Anything kept hot before serving |
| Cooking (core) | 75 °C for 30 seconds | Pre-cooked toppings, meat sauce |
| Reheating (core) | 75 °C (82 °C in Scotland) | Sauces made in advance |
Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, Schedule 4; Food Standards Agency, Safer Food, Better Business.
Set fridges to 2–3 °C rather than 5. A door opened fifty times during a Friday service pushes the air temperature up by several degrees, and that margin is what keeps you under the limit.
What is specific to a pizzeria
The prep counter during service
This is the weak point in nearly every pizzeria. The compressor cools the well, but the top of each open gastronorm pan, a metre from a 400 °C oven, can pass 10 °C in a rush. Fill pans little and often, close the lid as soon as the rush eases, and never tip what is left at closing into a fresh container for tomorrow.
Dough balls in cold fermentation
Slow-proved dough keeps between 2 and 6 °C for 24 to 72 hours, depending on your recipe. Label every tray with the date and time it was mixed, and write your tempering step (two to four hours at room temperature before service) into your food safety plan rather than leaving it to whoever is on shift. The fermentation side is covered in our Neapolitan dough recipe.
Mozzarella, sauce and cured meats
- Mozzarella: follow the label, usually 0–4 °C. Once opened, drained or cut, the manufacturer’s use-by date no longer applies, so set your own, often 48 to 72 hours.
- Tomato sauce: move an opened tin into a lidded, labelled food container and chill it. Cooked sauce made in-house follows the cooling rule below.
- Cured meats: cooked ham is chilled food. A whole salami is more forgiving, but once sliced it goes in the fridge.
Defrosting
Defrost in the fridge, not on the counter or under a hot tap, and never refreeze something that has been defrosted.
Proving it: records and your hygiene rating
An environmental health officer will ask for your records, not just check the thermometer. The result feeds your Food Hygiene Rating (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland), and customers see it on the door and online. A reasonable minimum:
| What | When | How |
|---|---|---|
| Fridges, freezers, prep counter | Opening and closing | Written log or automatic logger |
| Deliveries | Every delivery | Probe between packs, reject if out of range |
| Cooling | Every batch | Start and finish time and temperature |
| Probe thermometer | Monthly | Check in iced water (0 °C) and boiling water (100 °C) |
Also record what you did when a reading was out of range: food thrown away, engineer called. The FSA’s free Safer Food, Better Business pack has ready-made sheets for all of this.
Refrigeration is also an equipment decision. What to buy new, and why the prep counter is not the place to save money, is in our pizzeria equipment comparison. For the other compliance topic every menu has to handle, see the allergen rules for takeaways.