Cooked-chilled describes food that has been cooked, packaged, and refrigerated, intended for reheating before serving. The category covers supermarket ready meals, prepared deli foods, and catered dishes distributed cold. Safety depends on the full cook-chill discipline: thorough cooking, rapid blast chilling, unbroken refrigeration, and reheating until steaming hot throughout. Shelf lives are short, usually a few days, and use-by dates must be respected since chilling only slows, not stops, microbial growth. The format offers convenience and fresh-like quality, but only where the cold chain is rigorously maintained from factory to plate.