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REFRIGERATION

Troubleshooting

After a power cut: is the food still safe?

Power cuts are part of running a kitchen or shop in many parts of India. Whether food survives depends on how long the outage lasted, how warm the room got, how full the cabinet was and how often the door was opened. A closed, well-loaded cabinet loses temperature slowly; one opened during a busy lunch with no power loses it fast. The only reliable answer comes from a thermometer. This page explains how to judge it in practice. For your own premises, follow the food safety plan you maintain under FSSAI requirements, and when in doubt, throw it out.

First, check these

  1. During the outage, keep doors and lids closed. Every opening lets cold out and heat in.
  2. When power returns, check product temperatures with a probe thermometer in several places: top, door side and centre of the load.
  3. Note how long the power was off. If you were not on site, an alarm log, data logger or controller power-fail record can tell you.
  4. Confirm the unit restarts properly after any built-in delay and begins to pull down.
  5. Label anything you decide to keep so it is used first, and record what you discarded.

Likely causes

  1. 1. Chilled food still at or below 5 °C

    You can check this

    Signs: Probe readings throughout the load at or below 5 °C when power returns.

    Fix: The food can stay. Keep the door shut while the unit pulls back down and use these items early.

  2. 2. High-risk chilled food above 5 °C

    You can check this

    Signs: Dairy, cooked rice and curries, meat, seafood, cut fruit, cream desserts or sauces reading above 5 °C.

    Fix: Widely used guidance says perishable food held above 5 °C for more than about two hours should be discarded. If you cannot tell how long it was warm, discard it.

  3. 3. Frozen food still hard frozen

    You can check this

    Signs: Packs solid, ice crystals throughout, cabinet near −18 °C.

    Fix: Keep it. Close the lid and let the freezer recover before adding anything new.

  4. 4. Frozen food partly thawed

    You can check this

    Signs: Packs soft at the edges but still with ice crystals and cold throughout.

    Fix: Common guidance allows refreezing food that still has ice crystals and is cold, though texture suffers. Consider cooking and using it instead. Ice cream that has softened should not be refrozen for sale.

  5. 5. Frozen food fully thawed and warm

    You can check this

    Signs: No ice crystals, packs soft and above 5 °C, drip in the bottom of the freezer.

    Fix: Treat as chilled food that has been warm for an unknown time and discard high-risk items.

  6. 6. Unit did not restart after power returned

    Technician job

    Signs: Display dead, compressor silent, or clicking after power returned.

    Fix: Check the MCB and any stabiliser. If it still does not run after one clean restart, call a technician and move stock.

When to call a technician

Call a technician if the unit does not restart, takes far longer than usual to recover, or showed damage after the outage. For food decisions, contact your food-safety lead. As rough guidance for closed domestic-style cabinets, a refrigerator holds for about four hours and a full freezer much longer, but hot rooms and door openings shorten that. If outages are routine, plan backup power sized for the compressor's starting load and keep a data logger in key units.

When power returns, voltage can surge or sag; a voltage protector with a time delay prevents the compressor restarting into a bad supply. Do not open electrical panels. Hydrocarbon refrigerant (R290 or R600a) systems must only be repaired by trained technicians.

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