Food Standards Agency

Authority

Official guidance

Territories

GB-ENG, GB-WLS, GB-NIR

Primacy

primary

Commercial interest

none

Retrieved

2026-08-14

State

Read and citable

Original document

First published 27 December 2017, last updated 31 July 2026; retrieved from GOV.UK's own published copy after the ordinary page returned almost nothing. THE DOCUMENT STATES ITS OWN REACH — 'Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales' — which is BBQHQ's territorial correction confirmed by the authority itself rather than inferred from its remit. On holding it is the answer to a question asked directly: the FSA's consumer barbecue guidance gives NO hot-holding temperature and NO maximum hot-hold duration. What it does give numerically is the other end — leftovers into a fridge or cool bag 'within one to two hours', consumed 'within 48 hours', reheated once until steaming hot.

Safety, Culinary practice

• “cover and cool cooked foods quickly at room temperature. Place them in a fridge or cool bag (with ice packs) within one to two hours, especially on hot days.”

  The Food Standards Agency instructs consumers to cover and cool cooked barbecue food quickly at room temperature and to place it in a fridge or cool bag with ice packs within one to two hours, especially on hot days.

  What it covers:

  Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales, as the document states. Consumer guidance.

  Shape:

  A window, not an instant. The FSA gives one to two hours; Food Standards Scotland gives no window at all and instead gives an ORDER — cool first, then refrigerate. Two authorities, two shapes of instruction, and averaging them would produce a rule neither publishes.

  'Cooked foods' and 'leftovers from your barbecue'. The guidance does not discriminate by cut, species or form, and BBQHQ does not narrow it.

• “You should look to consume the leftovers from your barbecue within 48 hours.”

  The Food Standards Agency tells consumers to look to eat barbecue leftovers within 48 hours, and separately states that cooked leftover barbecue food may be frozen.

  'Should look to consume', which is softer than a prohibition and is recorded as it is written. Reporting it as 'must be eaten within 48 hours' would harden guidance the authority deliberately did not harden.

  Freezing is offered — 'You can also freeze cooked leftover food from the barbecue' — with NO duration attached, and BBQHQ attaches none. The FSA refers onward to Love Food Hate Waste, which is a separate source BBQHQ has not read.

  What it covers:

  England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Consumer guidance.

• “If you're reheating anything, only reheat it once and make sure it's steaming hot before serving.”

  The Food Standards Agency permits reheating barbecue leftovers once only, and gives the endpoint as steaming hot before serving. It attaches no temperature and no method.

  Endpoint:

  QUALITATIVE. No figure is given, and the FSA's cooking guidance figure — 70 °C for two minutes — is about cooking raw food rather than reheating cooked food. Carrying it across would be BBQHQ inventing a reheating endpoint.

  Method:

  No method is given. Oven, microwave, grill and pan are all absent, which is why a reader asking HOW to reheat something is only partly answered by this.

  Once. A hard limit and stated as one.

• “red meat such as steaks can be served pink, rare or bloody and will be safe to eat as long as the surface has been adequately seared”

  The Food Standards Agency's consumer barbecue guidance states that whole cuts of red meat such as steaks may be served pink, rare or bloody, and are safe on the condition that the surface has been adequately seared. It attaches no internal temperature to this case.

  What it covers:

  The document states its own reach: 'Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales'. Food Standards Scotland publishes separately and, as recorded separately, does not make this statement.

  The permission is CONDITIONAL and the condition is the whole rule: the surface must have been adequately seared, because on a whole cut the contamination is on the surface. A reading that drops the condition has changed the guidance into something else.

  Shape:

  No figure is given, and none is implied. This is a statement about a FORM rather than a temperature, which is why BBQHQ had to be able to record a rule about form at all before this could be held without inventing a number to hang it on.

• “other meats, like chicken and pork, as well as minced meat products such as burgers, kebabs and sausages should not be served pink or rare as bacteria can be in the meat”

  The same guidance places pork and chicken on the other side of the same sentence from red meat, alongside minced products: they should not be served pink or rare, because on those foods bacteria can be present within the meat rather than only on its surface.

  What it covers:

  Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales, as the document states.

  Pork is named, as a species, on the restricted side. This is the sentence that stops the red-meat permission being read as covering whole cuts generally: a pork loin is a whole cut and is excluded by name.

  Shape:

  Again no figure. The FSA's numerical endpoint — 70 °C for two minutes or an equivalent — is published in its business guidance and modelled separately; this sentence is a form rule and is recorded as one.

• “If so, cover and cool cooked foods quickly at room temperature. Place them in a fridge or cool bag (with ice packs) within one to two hours, especially on hot days.”

  The Food Standards Agency's consumer barbecue guidance, which applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales, gives no hot-holding temperature and no maximum hot-holding duration. Its numerical time limits are about the other end: leftovers covered and cooled, into a fridge or cool bag within one to two hours, eaten within 48 hours, and reheated once until steaming hot.

  What it covers:

  The document states its own reach: 'Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales'. BBQHQ deduced that from the FSA's remit; the authority says it directly.

  Read in full through the GOV.UK content API. The words 'hot holding', '63' and any holding temperature do not appear. The only hot-side instruction is that food be 'steaming hot throughout' before serving, which is an endpoint check rather than a hold.

  Safety regime:

  Consumer guidance, from the same authority whose retail instrument states 63 °C. One body, two audiences, two completely different documents — which is the distinction this catalogue exists to make visible.

• In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the Food Standards Agency instructs covering and cooling cooked barbecue food quickly at room temperature and getting it into a fridge or cool bag within one to two hours, especially on hot days.
• The Food Standards Agency tells consumers to look to eat barbecue leftovers within 48 hours, and states that cooked leftover barbecue food may be frozen without attaching any duration to freezing.
• The Food Standards Agency permits reheating barbecue leftovers once only, with the endpoint given as steaming hot before serving. No temperature and no method are published.
• In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the Food Standards Agency states that whole cuts of red meat such as steaks may be served pink, rare or bloody, on the condition that the surface has been adequately seared. No internal temperature is given for this case.
• The same Food Standards Agency guidance names pork and chicken, with minced products, as foods that should not be served pink or rare — placing whole cuts of pork on the opposite side of the sentence from whole cuts of beef and lamb.

If this source changes, these are the claims that need rechecking. That is the point of recording provenance per claim rather than per page.