Guide for Environmental Health Specialists
Who this is for
This guide lists the Ohio Food Code rules that come up most on a routine inspection, grouped by topic, with a link to each one. It's for Registered Environmental Health Specialists (REHS), still often called sanitarians, and for trainees working toward registration.
Every rule is from OAC 3717-1, effective September 5, 2024. Each citation links to the full text in FoodCodeBuddy, which works offline in the field.
The rules, by topic
These are the areas behind most critical violations, in roughly the order an inspector walks through a kitchen.
Person in charge
| Rule | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 3717-1-02.4(B) | During an inspection, the person in charge demonstrates knowledge of foodborne disease prevention, HACCP principles, critical control point principles, and the chapter's requirements as they apply to the operation. |
Employee health
| Rule | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 3717-1-02.1(A) | Food and conditional employees report symptoms to the person in charge: vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, sore throat with fever, or an open or draining infected lesion. |
| 3717-1-02.1(D) | The person in charge restricts or excludes employees with those symptoms or diagnoses. |
Handwashing and bare-hand contact
| Rule | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 3717-1-02.2(B) | Wash hands and exposed arms for at least 20 seconds, in a properly equipped handwashing sink. |
| 3717-1-02.2(C) | When to wash: before food prep, after the toilet, after touching the body, when switching from raw to ready-to-eat food, before putting on gloves, and more. |
| 3717-1-05.1(O) | The handwashing sink stays accessible at all times and is used only for handwashing. |
| 3717-1-03.2(A)(2) | No bare-hand contact with exposed ready-to-eat food; use utensils, deli tissue or gloves. |
Cross-contamination and toxic materials
| Rule | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 3717-1-03.2(C) | Raw animal foods are kept apart from ready-to-eat food, and different raw species from each other, during storage, preparation, holding and display. |
| 3717-1-07.2 | Poisonous or toxic materials are separated from food and not stored above food, equipment, utensils or linens. |
Temperature control
| Rule | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 3717-1-03.3(A) | Cooking temperatures for raw animal foods: 145°F, 155°F or 165°F depending on the food. |
| 3717-1-03.3(I) | Reheating for hot holding to 165°F (74°C) for 15 seconds, within 2 hours. |
| 3717-1-03.4(F) | Hot holding at 135°F (57°C) or above; cold holding at 41°F (5°C) or below. |
| 3717-1-03.4(D) | Cooling from 135°F to 70°F within 2 hours, and to 41°F or below within 6 hours in total. |
Every temperature and time is in one place on the Ohio food temperature chart.
Date marking and time as a control
| Rule | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 3717-1-03.4(G) | Refrigerated ready-to-eat TCS food held more than 24 hours is marked with a use-by date, at most 7 days at 41°F or below. The day of preparation counts as day one. |
| 3717-1-03.4(I) | Time as a public health control: food marked with its discard time and used or thrown out within 4 hours (or 6 hours under stricter conditions). |
Cleaning and sanitizing
| Rule | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 3717-1-04.6(A) | Food-contact surfaces and utensils are sanitized. |
| 3717-1-04.6(C) | Sanitizing methods: hot water immersion for at least 30 seconds, a hot water machine reaching 160°F at the utensil surface, or chemical sanitizer at the right strength. |
| 3717-1-04.4(N) | Chemical sanitizing solutions, manual or in a machine, meet the temperature, pH, concentration and water hardness requirements for that sanitizer. |
| 3717-1-04.5(A)(3) | Nonfood-contact surfaces of equipment are kept free of dust, dirt, food residue and other debris. Non-critical, but one of the most frequently written violations. |
| 3717-1-04.2(J) | A test kit that measures sanitizer concentration in ppm is on hand. |
How often each kind of equipment is cleaned, from every 4 hours to every 24, is on equipment cleaning frequency.
Approved source
| Rule | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 3717-1-03.1(A) | Food comes from sources that comply with food law. |
Keep these rules as a tag group
In FoodCodeBuddy, a tag group is your own set of tags, and each tag can be put on any rule. Make one for inspections and the rules you cite are a tap away, even offline.
- Sign in, open Tag groups, and choose New Tag Group. Name it, for example "Routine inspection".
- Add a tag for each topic above, such as "Employee health" or "Temperature control".
- Open each rule from this page and tag it with its topic.
Your tag groups sync across the iPhone app, the Android beta and the web, so a list built at your desk is there in the field.
Review and disclaimer
Last reviewed: November 8, 2026. Checked against OAC 3717-1, effective September 5, 2024.
FoodCodeBuddy is not an official government app. It may be incomplete or out of date. Before you rely on a rule, check the official text at codes.ohio.gov.