Food safety
🔥 Hot-holding: keeping served food out of the danger zone
Buffets and bain-maries need a minimum temperature. What it is and how long you can hold.
This is general guidance. Food-safety rules can change — always verify the current requirements with your national food-safety authority ↗. The operator remains responsible for compliance; we accept no liability for this information.
Official limits · EU baseline
Hot-holding (min)≥ 60 °C
EU law mandates HACCP + an unbroken cold chain but leaves the exact figures to national rules — confirm your country's number.
EU 852/2004 — no single numeric table; set via HACCPSource ↗
Food kept warm for service must stay hot enough that bacteria can’t grow. Once it drops into the danger zone and sits there, risk climbs quickly.
The EU minimum is strict
≥ 65°CHot-holding (EU/DK)
check on set-upand periodically
EU and Danish practice holds served hot food at 65°C or above — notably stricter than the US FDA figure of 57°C (135°F). Check the temperature when you set up the servery and at intervals during service; food that falls below and can’t be quickly reheated should be discarded, not left out.
Add hot-holding as a recurring check on service days with a 65°C floor; the "kiosk" flags any reading below it.
EU/DK hot-holding practice. US FDA Food Code uses ≥57°C.