Food safety after a power cut

What official guidance says

Food Standards Agency guidance covers England, Northern Ireland and Wales. It says a power cut lasting less than four hours is unlikely to affect chilled or frozen food safety. If the fridge reaches 8°C or above, food that normally requires refrigeration should be discarded after four hours unless power returns within that time.^[1]

Food Standards Scotland gives the same broad advice for Scottish readers: food can remain in a fridge while it stays below 8°C, and food normally requiring refrigeration should be eaten within four hours if it reaches 8°C or above.^[2]

Start with the fridge, not the cupboard

The first food to assess is food with a use-by date, products labelled “keep refrigerated” and cooked leftovers. This includes meat, poultry, fish and ready-to-eat chilled food such as sandwiches, salads and deli meats.^[1]

If you have a thermometer reading, use it rather than repeatedly opening the fridge. If you do not know the temperature or timing, take the cautious route and use the official guidance rather than assuming the food is safe.

What to keep, use first or throw away

Keep or use first

If the outage lasted under four hours and the doors stayed closed, the FSA says it is unlikely to affect chilled or frozen food safety. If the fridge remained under 8°C, chilled food can stay in the fridge. Cupboard food can normally wait because food stored at room temperature continues to be safe to eat.^[1]

Throw away when the official threshold is met

If the fridge reached 8°C or above, food that normally requires refrigeration should be eaten within four hours. If power is not restored within four hours, the FSA says the affected food should be discarded.^[1]

Pause when you do not know enough

Some post-outage decisions cannot be reduced to a single shortcut. Do not treat a simple appearance check as a universal refreezing rule. Keep the freezer door closed, record what you know about the outage and use the source-checked refreezing guide before deciding.

Why food order matters

The FSA recommends using food in this order: food needing refrigeration, defrosted frozen food that does not need cooking, room-temperature perishable food and room-temperature canned, bottled and dried food. This helps reduce waste while keeping food safety central.^[1]

Who should be especially cautious?

The FSA identifies young children, pregnant women, older people and people with underlying health conditions as groups at greater risk from food poisoning. Take extra care with ready-to-eat chilled food, deli meats and smoked fish. Good hygiene, keeping raw and cooked food separate and cooking food until steaming hot remain important after an outage.^[1]

Practical conclusion

Begin with food that normally needs refrigeration. If the fridge stayed under 8°C, chilled food can remain there. If it reached 8°C or above, follow the FSA four-hour advice. Next, work through defrosted food that does not need cooking, then room-temperature perishable food. Leave canned, bottled and dried food until later.

For preparation steps, read How to protect food during a power cut. If you are checking a packaged item for a current safety alert, search RecallBite’s live recalls by product name, brand, lot code, batch code or available barcode.