Food Standards Agency
Less than thoroughly cooked beef burgers: guidance for food businesses and local authorities
What this source is
- Authority
- Official guidance
- Territories
- GB
- Primacy
- primary
- Commercial interest
- none
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-13
- State
- Read and citable
Establishes that rare or pink beef burgers require specific controls that whole cuts do not, because mincing distributes surface bacteria through the interior. The primary UK source for the form-first safety principle.
What it may be cited for
Safety
What we recorded from it
The FSA publishes separate guidance for less than thoroughly cooked beef burgers, covering controls that reduce the risks of serving them rare or pink — controls that whole cuts of beef do not require.
- Written for food businesses and local authorities rather than for domestic cooks.
- Why it happens:
- Mincing distributes surface bacteria through the interior, so the interior of a burger cannot be treated like the interior of a steak.
Claims resting on it
- A beef burger cannot be treated like a steak: mincing moves surface bacteria into the interior, so serving one rare or pink requires controls that a whole cut does not.
If this source changes, these are the claims that need rechecking. That is the point of recording provenance per claim rather than per page.