What determines whether a food is ready-to-eat versus ready-to-cook?
Ready-to-eat foods are produced by food manufacturing establishments as well as food service and retail operations. With respect to this situation, a ready-to-eat food is one that will be consumed without additional treatment such as cooking that would kill Salmonella. With respect to this situation, a ready-to-cook food is one that contains cooking instructions for food service or for consumers that are validated to kill Salmonella. What is meant by a “validated kill step for Salmonella” ? With respect to this situation, a validated kill step is one that has been shown to adequately reduce Salmonella if it is present in a food containing the affected HVP. FDA has previously explained the meaning of “adequately reduce:” [We] use the phrase “adequately reduce” to mean capable of reducing the presence of Salmonella to an extent sufficient to prevent illness. The extent of reduction sufficient to prevent illness usually is determined by the estimated extent to which Salmonella spp. may be
