There is described a method for cooling a food product (2) comprising at least the steps of placing the food product (2) to be cooled into a cooling space (4) of a cooling device (1), estimating and/or calculating a cooling time needed to cool the food product (2) from a pre-determined upper temperature limit to a pre-determined lower temperature limit, comparing the estimated and/or calculated cooling time with a pre-determined maximum cooling time and releasing and/or prompting an alert signal indicating the risk of the cooling time exceeding the pre-determined maximum cooling time if the estimated and/or calculated cooling time is larger than the pre-determined maximum cooling time. There is also described a cooling device (1) for cooling a food product comprising a cooling space (4) for receiving the food product (2) to be cooled, a calculation unit configured to estimate and/or calculate a cooling time needed to cool the food product (2) from a pre-determined upper temperature limit to a pre-determined lower temperature limit and to compare the estimated and/or calculated cooling time with a pre-determined maximum cooling time, and an alert unit configured to release an alert signal indicating the risk of the cooling time exceeding the pre-determined maximum cooling time if the estimated and/or calculated cooling time is larger than the pre-determined maximum cooling time.