Resources
Care Card
A practical guide to product care cards for South African cold rooms, counters, and kitchen prep areas.
How Care Card works across a trading week
Care Card is a practical guide for handling product in South African cold rooms, service counters and kitchen prep areas. It brings the key care points into one place so staff can follow the same standard across the floor.
Build the Care Card around the exact stock on hand, the handover time, and where the product will be worked. A cold room in Johannesburg behaves differently from a prep area in Durban, especially when humidity rises or load-shedding shifts portioning later into the day. For Cape Town hotels, butcher counters, and export kitchens, the card should state the non-negotiables in plain language staff can use during receiving and storage.
The first receiving image belongs with the Care Card, not in a buried chat thread. Keep the card near the cold room door or with the order paperwork so temperatures, pack condition, and use-by sequence can be checked at handover. That simple record helps when a box arrives wet, labels are damaged, or service prep starts under pressure.
What goes onto the card
A proper Care Card names the cut or product, the storage range, and the checks required before it reaches the counter or kitchen bench. It should also record delivery timing, cold-chain photos, and any handling issue picked up during transport or receiving. In busy trade, one readable sheet is more useful than scattered messages across email and WhatsApp.
Link Care Card to the matching order notes before extra products are added to the brief. Before stock moves into storage, verify labels, carton count, seal condition, and the temperature reading shown at receiving. Tell us the cuts, the weekly volumes and the receiving hours at your kitchen or butchery.
- Storage range written for each product
- Receiving photos saved with the order
- Handling issues recorded at handover
Checks for South African trading conditions
Care Card should account for OR Tambo export movements, cold-store cut-off times, and receiving teams that start before or after standard kitchen prep. Some sites have older chillers, limited staging space, or mixed stock arriving on the same vehicle, so the card must separate checks clearly. Standing weekly lines should be listed apart from urgent top-up stock to avoid confusion in the cold room.
Coastal sites need tighter attention to carton dryness, condensation, and door-open time in storage. Inland operations may focus more on dust around prep areas, longer transport legs, and timing around power cuts. A useful Care Card reflects those site conditions instead of giving generic storage advice that nobody can apply during service.
Operated by Astros Marketing (Pty) Ltd from 2 Makro Place, Sunnyrock 1401.
Using Care Card during handover
Send a Care Card with cold-chain photos, delivery timing, and any handling issues already picked up. Use a clear subject line that names the order or customer.
File the Care Card on the day of delivery with the stock record, delivery note, and product specification. When a chef, butcher, or buyer queries pack condition later, the card gives one reference point for what arrived, how it was checked, and what action was noted at receiving.