Part of the Prep and Production Cook track. Lesson 2 of 10.
Where in the shift: whenever the truck arrives, which is rarely convenient.
Prerequisites: Modules 2, 13, 14, 46.
The sequence
Stop what you are doing.
Probe the product — not the truck's air.
Check against the written spec — grade, weight range, trim, pack.
Inspect condition, per the identification modules.
Accept or reject.
Then put it away, dated.
The decisions
Whether to accept. This is the only moment where rejection is available, and it lasts about ninety seconds per case, per Module 46. Once accepted, the problem is the kitchen's.
Which means the decision has to be made now, by whoever is standing there — and a receiving clerk who has to find a manager before rejecting will accept it. That authority is a management decision and it belongs stated in advance.
Whether a substitution is acceptable. A vendor filling within a loose spec is acting legitimately. The question is whether this product will do the job.
And if it has to be accepted because rejecting means running out — tell whoever it affects. The pit cook whose schedule just changed is going to find out by failing, per Module 46, and a thirty-second conversation prevents a week of confusion.
What you are reading
Temperature, probed. Fifteen seconds and it is the most informative check available, per Module 14.
Condition against the standard — resilience on seafood, color and firmness on meat, ice condition, packaging integrity, purge volume.
And the spec. Grade, weight, trim, pack — read, not assumed.
What goes wrong here
Received without inspection. Product acceptable on the truck and wrong at the bench two hours later, per Module 14 — and refrigeration did not cause it, the product arrived that way.
A substitution accepted silently. Cook times change all week and nobody connects it.
And the inspection compressed because the prep list is behind, which is the most common version.
Verification
The receiving log with probed temperatures, not a signature.
And a spot check: pick one recent delivery and ask what was probed and what it read.
The boundary
Approved source, receiving temperature, and record-keeping requirements are governed by the local health authority, and shellfish carry additional tagging requirements.