Whether it's August and back to school time for kids, or you're just trying to save a little cash by packing your own lunch — just about everybody will "brown bag it" at one time or another! At Stop Foodborne Illness, that means it’s time for us to shine the spotlight on ways you can keep homemade lunches safe to help protect your family from food poisoning. When carrying a lunch from home, keep these facts and tips in mind to pack your food in the safest way possible:
Remember the Temperature Danger Zone. Bacteria grow rapidly in the temperature “danger zone” of 40-140 °F.
Wash your hands. When preparing lunches, wash your hands thoroughly and keep all surfaces you’re working on clean. If you have children, seeing you in the habit of washing your hands before and after preparing or eating food is an invaluable safety lesson for them, so use this as an opportunity to explain the importance of hand-washing in preventing foodborne illness.
Use an insulated lunch box. Whether hard-sided or soft, this will help you keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot until it’s time to eat them. The best option is one with an insulated lining and a pocket for a thin freezer pack. Using an insulated box will help keep food out of the bacteria growth “danger zone.”
Use ice packs. These inexpensive food safety “must-haves” help keep cold foods cold. You can pick them up for about $1 each.
Use an insulated thermos. This keeps hot foods hot like soups, chili, or mac & cheese.
Freeze drinks before packing. Frozen milk, juice boxes, and water bottles will help keep the drinks cold, along with other cold foods you’ve packed.
Pack hot foods while hot. Don’t wait for hot foods to cool down before packing. This puts them in the temperature “danger zone” where bacteria multiply. Instead, pour piping hot foods like soups immediately into an insulated thermos. You can also preheat your thermos by filling it with boiling water, letting it sit for a few minutes, pouring out the water, and then adding your hot food.
Wash and separate fresh fruits/veggies. Be sure to wash these foods thoroughly before packing them in the lunch using plastic bags or containers to keep them away from other items.
Use individual snack packs. To help prevent the spread of germs, these are recommended. Be aware that portions packed from larger bags of items like pretzels, chips, and cookies could mean potential exposure to bacteria from many hands that have been in and out of the bag.
Add room-temperature-safe foods. Some foods don’t need to be refrigerated to be safe. Peanut butter, jelly, cookies, crackers, chips, dried fruit, and certain whole fruits (bananas, apples, and oranges) can be eaten safely at room temperature. When packing fruits like apples with skins that’ll be eaten, be sure you’ve washed them first.
Remember to wash your hands. Encourage your child to wash their hands. Before and after eating lunch, it is so important to wash your hands. Washing with soap and water is best, but wet wipes or hand sanitizer will work in a pinch.
Remember the 5-second myth (and explain it to your kids). Any food that touches the floor (where everybody walks, including pets) needs to be thrown away, not put in your mouth. Be sure your child knows that the “5-second rule” is a myth.
Toss perishable food. If not eaten at lunchtime, you should throw away perishables like meat, poultry, or egg sandwiches. Unopened, room-temperature-safe foods and uneaten fruit can be kept.
Clean and sanitize. Make sure lunch boxes are regularly cleaned and sanitized. STOP recommends cleaning a child’s box each evening before packing the next day’s lunch. Find handy tips for cleaning your lunch box here.
Alex is a proven leader in Food Safety and Quality Assurance with more than 16 years of leadership experience across food manufacturing operations, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement. Currently, Alex is a senior manager of supplier quality management at Nestlé USA. In this role he is responsible for partnering with companies across the food industry to ensure compliance and food safety within his organization’s supply chain.
Throughout his career, Alex has delivered measurable improvements in food safety performance with a focus on foreign body elimination, validated cleaning programs, reductions in consumer complaints, and the implementation of robust compliance programs. As a Quality Manager, he has led ISO 9001 and FSSC 22000 certification initiatives, built problem-solving capability, and achieved substantial reductions in foreign material defects.
His experience and expertise spans FDA and USDA regulations, FSMA, HACCP, and GFSI systems, with extensive experience leading regulatory responses, crisis management, food safety initiatives, and food safety culture development across global manufacturing operations.
Abigail is a food safety and quality leader with more than 13 years of experience advancing consumer protection and strengthening food safety systems across the food industry.
As an R&D Principal Scientist at PepsiCo, she provides global technical leadership in sanitation, hygienic design, contamination prevention, and food safety risk management across complex manufacturing and innovation environments.
Throughout her career, Abigail has been recognized for translating food safety science, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices into practical, scalable solutions that strengthen both operations and governance. Her expertise spans global food safety and sanitation standards, risk-based ingredient and process assessments, contamination prevention strategies, supplier and manufacturing risk management, and digital transformation initiatives that improve consistency, efficiency, and decision making.
Abigail is passionate about proactive prevention, embedding food safety into equipment, processes, and emerging technologies from the earliest stages of development. With a forward-looking perspective and a strong passion for elevating food safety culture, Abigail is helping shape a future where safer food isn't simply the goal—it's built into the way the industry operates.
Alexandra is the Food Safety Director – Southeast at Fresh Express, where she is responsible for the east coast agricultural operations food safety program, environmental monitoring, and provides corporate food safety and quality oversight for the Columbia, SC facility.
Prior to working at Fresh Express, Alexandra was the Food Safety Director of Agricultural Operations at McEntire Produce. She volunteers her time as a member of the Center for Produce Safety Technical Committee and as a steering committee member for the International Fresh Produce Association Food Safety Council.
Alexandra received her Ph.D. in Food Science with minors in microbiology and epidemiology from Cornell University under Martin Wiedmann and Renata Ivanek. During graduate school, she modeled pathogen die-off and presence in the pre-harvest produce environment and assisted companies in improving their Listeria environmental monitoring programs.
