Where Cross-Contact Sneaks In: A Field Guide for Meal-Prep Teams
You've got the colored cutting boards, the dedicated utensils, the sanitizer spray that smells like lemon and bleach. And still, someone with a sesame allergy gets sick. That's the thing about cross-contact in meal-prep: it seldom announces itself. It just shows up in the gaps amidst the rules you've posted and the rhythm of a busy shift. This guide walks those gaps. Not the theory—the ground truth of moving fast, when the board is wet, when the bin is stacked flawed. We'll look at where cross-contact in practice leaks, what crews do to stop it, and where those fixes fall apart. Every kitchen has a story. A catering crew we shadowed spent a month chasing a mysterious rash—turns out, the same rag that wiped the peanut sauce was wiping the salad station. That's the kind of detail this guide hunts for.