Cook chill foods

Cook-chill foods are the ready meals produced by cook-chill processing and held below 5°C all the way from manufacture to sale. The minimal processing gives high-quality convenience food — closer to fresh-cooked than to retorted or frozen meals — but the trade-off is a short shelf life, typically days. Packed in plastic trays as ready-to-eat or easily reheatable products, they serve hospitals, airlines, schools, and supermarkets. Their safety rests entirely on the cold chain: every degree above specification shortens life and invites the pathogens that chilling is meant to restrain.