An employee pulls out his cell phone while slicing fruit. According to the FDA food code, what must the manager ask him to do?

• A. Continue slicing after sanitizing the knife
• B. Wash hands and resume
• C. Turn off the phone and keep slicing
• D. Discard any contaminated fruit and wash his hands

Answer: (D)

Cross-contamination prevention starts with clean hands whenever handling ready-to-eat foods. If a worker touches a cell phone while slicing fruit, his hands can pick up microbes from the device. The safest response is to discard any fruit that may have contacted those hands and then wash hands before resuming. Sanitizing the knife doesn’t fix potential hand contamination, and simply washing and continuing would risk serving contaminated fruit. Turning off the phone doesn’t remove microbes from hands, so the risk isn’t addressed. So, discard the potentially contaminated fruit and wash hands before continuing. To prevent this, keep personal devices out of the prep area and ensure hands are washed whenever non-food items are handled.