Food safety and care

A cutting surface is the one piece of kitchen equipment that touches raw protein and then touches everything else. Here is what we know about ours, what we have had tested, and how to look after it.

Why grooves matter

Every cut into a wooden or plastic board leaves a groove. Grooves hold moisture and residue, and washing does not reach the bottom of one. Over a year of ordinary use a board accumulates thousands of them, which is why a well-used board eventually gets thrown out rather than cleaned.

The CleanCut surface does not develop those grooves. There is nothing for anything to settle into, so washing does what you expect it to do.

What it is made of

A polyethylene sheet. No PTFE, no PFAS, no fluoropolymers — nothing with a half-life. It has been used in inspected commercial kitchens for years and meets Canadian Food Inspection Agency requirements for food contact.

It is recyclable at the end of its life, confirmed in writing by the laboratory that tested it. Municipal programmes differ on what they accept, so check yours — if it does not take rigid polyethylene at the kerb, a depot or a store drop-off will.

What the lab found

Before there was anything to sell, Dennis Arsenault paid an independent laboratory to find out whether the surface actually worked. BIO|FOOD|TECH in Charlottetown ran the study in March 2019, project 5-18-022.

The method. Ground beef with a known bacterial load was pressed onto 100 cm² pieces of CleanCut and of a polypropylene cutting board, and left in contact for 0, 30, 60 and 90 minutes. Both surfaces were then rinsed, scrubbed in two directions for thirty seconds each, rinsed again and patted dry — the same wash, both materials. What remained was swabbed and counted. Two trials, run in duplicate.

The result. Washing removed 2.77 log CFU/mL from CleanCut and 1.64 log CFU/mL from the polypropylene board. For the same starting contamination, that leaves roughly thirteen times more bacteria on the plastic board after it has been washed.

What it does not say. Three things, stated plainly because they matter more than the headline.

  • The comparison is with polypropylene boards only. The study says nothing about wooden boards, and neither will we.
  • It measures aerobic plate count — the general bacterial population — not named pathogens such as Salmonella or E. coli.
  • It measures how much washing removes. CleanCut is not antibacterial, not antimicrobial and not self-sanitising. It has no additives that kill anything. The surface simply has nowhere for bacteria to lodge, so an ordinary wash reaches more of them.

The report is cited here with BIO|FOOD|TECH's permission.

How to use it

  • Lay it directly on the counter, or over a board you already own. The embossed underside grips — you do not need a damp tea towel under it.
  • Use it for raw protein. That is what it is for.
  • When the prep is done, bend the sheet into a curve and slide everything into the pan.
  • Do not use it as a trivet, do not put it near a burner, and do not cut on it with a serrated saw. It is a cutting surface, not a heatproof one.

How to wash it

  • Dishwasher, top or bottom rack. It comes out flat.
  • Or by hand, with dish soap and a cloth. No scouring pad needed — there are no grooves to dig into.
  • Store it flat in a drawer. It does not need a rack.

Good practice, whatever you cut on

Keep raw protein away from anything that will not be cooked. Wash the surface between the chicken and the salad, not after both. Wash your hands more often than feels necessary. None of that changes because the surface is better — it just gets easier when the surface actually cleans up.

Questions about substantiation

If you want the detail behind any claim on this site, write to us and we will send you what we have. We would rather answer that question than avoid it.