Consumer handling Since the mid-1980s there has been a considerable increase in legislation defining maximum temperatures during the production, distribution and retailing of chilled food. However, as soon as the food is purchased by the consumer, it is outside of any of these legislative requirements. Increasingly food poisoning incidents have been found to be due to mishandling of food in the home with insufficient refrigeration or cooling being the most fre uent factor causing disease(WHO, 1992). Of the 1562 cases of food poi- soning reported during 1986-1988, 970(62%)were caused in the home. Consumer handling of products may not be as intended or envisaged by the manufacturer. Many chilled products are purchased on the basis of the "fresh image, but then frozen at home(Brown, 1992) After a chilled or frozen product is removed from a retail display cabinet it is outside a refrigerated environment whilst it is carried around the store and then transported home for further storage. In the home it may be left in ambient conditions or stored in the refrigerator/freezer until required. There are few published data on consumers'attitudes to chilled food and their handling procedures in the home. The majority of the data quoted here have been obtained from a survey of 252 households which was funded by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food(MAFF)in the UK(Evans et aL., 1991). As part of the survey, participants were asked questions to ssess their attitude to food poisoning, shopping habits and the length of ime they stored chilled foods in the home Monitoring was then carried out to determine the length of time and temperature foods were stored at in the home. These data were augmented with experimental data from labo- ratory studies on the performance of refrigerators and temperature changes during transportation to the home.12 Consumer handling Since the mid-1980s there has been a considerable increase in legislation defining maximum temperatures during the production, distribution and retailing of chilled food. However, as soon as the food is purchased by the consumer, it is outside of any of these legislative requirements. Increasingly food poisoning incidents have been found to be due to mishandling of food in the home with insufficient refrigeration or cooling being the most fre￾quent factor causing disease (WHO, 1992). Of the 1562 cases of food poi￾soning reported during 1986–1988, 970 (62%) were caused in the home. Consumer handling of products may not be as intended or envisaged by the manufacturer. Many chilled products are purchased on the basis of the ‘fresh image’, but then frozen at home (Brown, 1992). After a chilled or frozen product is removed from a retail display cabinet it is outside a refrigerated environment whilst it is carried around the store and then transported home for further storage. In the home it may be left in ambient conditions or stored in the refrigerator/freezer until required. There are few published data on consumers’ attitudes to chilled food and their handling procedures in the home.The majority of the data quoted here have been obtained from a survey of 252 households which was funded by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) in the UK (Evans et al., 1991). As part of the survey, participants were asked questions to assess their attitude to food poisoning, shopping habits and the length of time they stored chilled foods in the home. Monitoring was then carried out to determine the length of time and temperature foods were stored at in the home. These data were augmented with experimental data from labo￾ratory studies on the performance of refrigerators and temperature changes during transportation to the home