Allergens & Food Safety

Allergens we declare

Every recipe card lists its full ingredients, with allergens highlighted. Weekly menus on the website show the allergens in each dish before you commit to it. The allergens we identify and declare are:

• Cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats)
• Crustaceans (shrimp, crab, lobster)
• Molluscs (squid, mussels, oysters)
• Fish
• Eggs
• Milk and dairy
• Peanuts
• Tree nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts and others)
• Soybeans
• Sesame seeds
• Sulphites (10 mg/kg or more)

This follows the internationally recognised Codex Alimentarius list of foods commonly causing hypersensitivity. If you react to something outside this list, tell us before ordering — we would rather have the conversation than guess.

On a menu card these appear in shorter, everyday words. One difference is worth naming: Codex counts crustaceans and molluscs separately, while a dish is tagged simply shellfish, which covers both — shrimp, crab and lobster as well as squid, mussels and oysters. If you avoid one and not the other, ask us and we will tell you exactly which is in the dish.

Ingredient substitutions

Occasionally a supplier lets us down and we substitute an ingredient. If a substitution changes the allergens in your kit, we will tell you before it is delivered, and you can decline that week without charge.

Sauces, stocks and seasonings

Prepared items such as sauces, marinades, stocks and spice blends can carry allergens that are not obvious — soy, gluten, sulphites, sesame and dairy are common. We list these on the recipe card. If you are unsure about a specific product we have used, ask and we will tell you the brand and its declared allergens.

When your kit arrives

Kits contain fresh chilled ingredients, including raw proteins. In Trinidad's climate the cold chain matters more than almost anything else you can do.

1. Refrigerate immediately. Unpack and get everything into the fridge as soon as the kit reaches you.
2. Keep your fridge at or below 5°C (41°F), and your freezer at or below −18°C (0°F).
3. Store raw proteins on the bottom shelf, in their sealed packaging, below ready-to-eat items so nothing can drip onto them.
4. Go by the use-by date on the recipe card, which is worked out for that dish rather than for kits in general. We deliver on Saturday or Sunday, but every box that week is packed in the same run, so the date is counted from the Saturday whichever day yours arrives — a Sunday box has one day less in your fridge than a Saturday one. As a rough guide, counted from that Saturday: seafood is the shortest at about 2 days (1 from a Sunday delivery), poultry about 3 (2 from Sunday), leafy vegetables about 4 (3 from Sunday), and hardier vegetables, pulses and store-cupboard items keep past the end of the week. Where this page and the card disagree, the card is right — it is computed from what is actually in your dish.
5. Freezing gives you the rest of the week. Won't cook it by the use-by date? Freeze the raw meat or fish the day your box arrives. Thaw it overnight in the fridge, never on the counter, cook it within a day, and don't refreeze it raw.

Cooking safely

Follow the recipe card, and use a food thermometer where you can. Colour is not a reliable guide to whether meat is cooked. Minimum safe internal temperatures:

• Chicken and all poultry — 74°C (165°F)
• Minced or ground meat — 71°C (160°F)
• Whole cuts of beef, pork and lamb — 63°C (145°F), then rest for 3 minutes
• Fish — 63°C (145°F), or until it flakes easily
• Shrimp and shellfish — until opaque and firm throughout
• Reheating anything already cooked — 74°C (165°F)

While you cook

• Wash your hands before starting, and again after handling raw protein.
• Use separate boards and knives for raw protein and for anything eaten raw. If you only have one board, do the vegetables first.
• Do not rinse raw chicken — it sprays bacteria around your sink and counter.
• Wash boards, knives and surfaces in hot soapy water after raw protein touches them.

Leftovers

Cool leftovers quickly, refrigerate within two hours, eat within three days, and reheat once only, thoroughly, to 74°C (165°F).

Our side of it

Before any kit reaches a customer, we commit to:

• Holding a valid Food Handler's Badge for everyone who prepares or packs food, as required by the Public Health authorities.
• Preparing food in premises registered and inspected by the relevant Regional Corporation.
• Labelling every kit with its contents, allergens, packing date and use-by dates.
• Keeping proteins chilled from purchase through portioning to delivery, and packing kits with insulation and ice packs.
• Keeping records of what went into each week's kits, so that if a problem ever arises we can trace it properly.

If something seems wrong

Do not eat it. Contact us straight away at mail@misora.co.tt with a photograph if you can — if a kit arrives warm, damaged, leaking, or with anything that smells or looks off, we want to know immediately, both to put it right for you and to check whether anyone else is affected.

If anyone becomes unwell after eating a Misora kit, seek medical attention first, then tell us as soon as you are able. Keep any remaining food and packaging — it may be needed to work out what happened.

For how this fits with your other rights, see our Terms of Service.