Chopping board quiz

To ensure consumers are safe when eating food created in your kitchen, you must make sure staff use the correct chopping boards. Use our document to test their knowledge.

The importance of colour coding

Chopping boards come in all different shapes, sizes, colours and materials but most commercial kitchens use a colour-coded plastic set. This makes it more likely that cross-contamination will be avoided. These boards are also easily cleaned.

Each food group has its own adopted colour:

- Blue = raw fish

- Brown = vegetables

- Green = salad and fruit

- Red = raw meat

- White = bakery and dairy

- Yellow = cooked meat

Note. Purple boards are starting to appear for allergenic foods but are not yet commonly used.

There are other kitchen items available in colour-coded sets, e.g. knives, utensils and cleaning equipment. 

To make sure boards are safe to use, they should be cleaned after each use with a brush in hot soapy water. They should then be rinsed with clean water and air dried before being stored in an upright position. Our quiz emphasises that this is required between each use.

The quiz

Our Chopping Board Quiz has been designed as a quick way to check that staff know which boards should be used when working with different foods and how to maintain them in a hygienic state. It should take a few minutes to complete and answers can be checked very quickly.

Note. Use the quiz to check the knowledge of all kitchen staff including chefs and kitchen porters, as well as any front of house staff who may need to use them, e.g. when cutting fruit for use behind the bar. You might use it following initial training, or to reinforce and test knowledge between training sessions.

Top marks are expected, however if mistakes are made, it is recommended that further training and a retest is given. Place the completed and marked quiz in the employee’s personnel folder as a record of their knowledge and understanding.