Mobile Food Facilities (MFF)

Mobile Food Facilities are trucks, trailers, vans, carts, or any portable units that sell prepackaged food and unpackaged non-potentially hazardous foods.

Non-Potentially Hazardous Foods:

• Chips
• Popcorn
• Hot Dogs
• Shaved Ice
• Candy Bars
• Dry Goods & Cereals
• Dehydrated Foods
• Canned or Bottled Drinks

“Limited Food Preparation” refers to the following types of food preparation:

• Heating, frying, baking, roasting, popping, shaving of ice, blending, steaming or boiling of hot dogs, or assembly of non-prepackaged foods. Dispensing and portioning of non-potentially hazardous food or dispensing and portioning for immediate service to a customer of food that has been temperature controlled until immediately prior to portioning or dispensing.
• Dispensing and portioning of non-potentially hazardous foods that do not require hot holding.
• Slicing and chopping of food on a heated cooking surface during the cooking process, not on a separate cutting board or food contact surface.
• Cooking and seasoning for immediate service only for an individual customer’s order. No cooking for later service is allowed on an MFF.
• Preparing beverages that are for immediate service, in response to an individual consumer order, that do not contain frozen milk products (such as ice cream, gelato, or frozen yogurt).

• Slicing and chopping unless it is on the heated cooking surface.
• Thawing.
• Cooling of cooked, potentially hazardous food.
• Grinding raw ingredients or potentially hazardous food.
• Reheating of potentially hazardous foods for hot holding, except for steamed or boiled hot dogs and tamales in the original, inedible wrapper. The only foods allowed in steam tables are hot dogs and tamales.
• Hot holding of non-prepackaged, potentially hazardous food, except for roasting corn on the cob, steamed or boiled hot dogs, and tamales in the original, inedible wrapper.

• Washing of foods including produce.
• Cooking of potentially hazardous foods for later use. Most common types of mobile food facilities are open-air hot dogs and shaved ice carts. Here is a document that deals specifically with these two types of carts.
• Handling, manufacturing, freezing, processing, or packaging of milk, milk products, or products resembling milk products which require a Milk Products Plant License from the California Department of Food and Agriculture.