Wash your hands

Your hands can easily spread bacteria around the kitchen and onto food. This is why it's important to always wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water at each of these times:
• Before starting to prepare food
• After touching raw meat, including poultry
• After going to the toilet
• After touching the bin
• After touching pets
Don't forget to dry your hands thoroughly, because if they are wet they will spread bacteria more easily.

Separate raw meat and ready-to-eat food

Raw meat contains harmful bacteria that can spread very easily to anything it touches, including other foods, worktops, chopping boards and knives.

It's especially important to keep raw meat away from ready-to-eat foods, such as salad, fruit and bread. This is because these foods won't be cooked before you eat them, so any bacteria that get onto the foods won't be killed.

To help stop bacteria from spreading, remember these things:
• Don't let raw meat touch other foods.
• Never prepare ready-to-eat food using a chopping board or knife that you have used to prepare raw meat, unless they have been washed thoroughly first.
• Always wash your hands thoroughly after touching raw meat and before you touch anything else.
• Always cover raw meat and store it on the bottom shelf of the fridge where it can't touch or drip onto other foods.

It is always better to ask your supplier to gut the poultry or game bird for you, when you buy it. Get the poultry or game into a fridge quickly – ideally within 1-2 hours. Store raw poultry or game away from cooked food. Put raw poultry or game at the bottom of the fridge to avoid it dripping on to other food
always wash your hands, using warm water and soap, after handling raw meat, poultry or game, and before touching other food. Clean the preparation area thoroughly before and after you start gutting the bird

If you are gutting poultry or a game bird in Home

Handle and remove the innards well away from other foods to avoid contamination of worktops and other foods use disposable cloths, paper towels and disposable gloves whenever possib the guts should be removed carefully from the rear of the bird and the heart from the neck avoid rupturing the intestines and spilling the contents of the gut keep work surfaces and equipment clean and dry during use

After gutting poultry or game

Don't wash poultry or game-bird meat because any splashing might spread bacteria around the kitchen wipe blood clots off the bird with paper kitchen roll dispose of removed innards and any other inedible material carefully in a waste bin – place it in a sealed container before disposing of it wash utensils and work surfaces thoroughly in warm soapy water after use and, if possible, disinfect them wash your hands thoroughly in warm soapy water after handling raw poultry and dry thoroughly