Training your staff

The Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995 require the proprietor of a food business to ensure all food handlers are supervised and instructed or trained in food hygiene matters to a level appropriate for their work activities.

A 'food handler' is anyone involved in a food business who handles food whether it is open (unwrapped) or packaged.

The law requires the proprietor of a food business to ensure that all 'food handlers' are instructed or trained in food hygiene matters. Food includes drinks and ice. This guidance explains how to comply with the law.

The type of training needed will depend on the actual job of the food handler and the type of food that is handled. Staff who handle 'high risk' food will require more training than staff who handle 'low risk' food. 'High risk food' is food, which bacteria can grow on and which will be eaten without further cooking.

High risk food includes cooked meat and poultry, dairy produce, cooked eggs, egg products such as mayonnaise, shellfish, cooked rice.

Before they start work for the first time, all food handlers must receive written or verbal instruction in the 'Essentials of Food Hygiene', which includes:
Keep yourself clean and wear clean clothing
Always wash your hands thoroughly before handling food, after using the toilet, after handling raw foods and waste, after every break, after blowing your nose
+ Tell your supervisor of any ear, nose, throat, stomach or bowel trouble Never cough or sneeze in a food room
+ Cover cuts and sores with a waterproof, high visibility dressing
+ Do not prepare food too far in advance of service
+ Keep perishable food either refrigerated or piping hot
+ Keep raw and cooked food separate
+ Clean as you go - keep equipment and surfaces clean
+ Follow the instruction on food packaging

All staff who handle open 'high risk' food must have formal training in food hygiene. Examples of staff who must have formal food hygiene training include commis chef, catering supervisor, kitchen assistant and bar staff who all prepare food.

+ A typical food hygiene training course will include:
+ Food poisoning micro-organisms and sources
+ Simple microbiology
+ Premises and equipment
+ Common food hazards
+ Personal hygiene Preventing contamination
+ Cleaning and disinfection
+ Legal obligations
+ Pest control
+ Effective temperature control

Training must be reviewed and updated periodically to take account of changes in the business and new legislation. Employers are advised to have written evidence of the food hygiene training undertaken by staff.

For more information, please call 0871 2003441.

Safer Food Better Business (SFBB) is a new initiative by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to improve food safety standards. It is a food safety management system, designed to help catering businesses comply with food safety legislation that came into force on 1 January 2006. SFBB offers jargon free, easy to use practical guidance for catering businesses. It provides fact-sheets, which a manager can adapt to their own businesses.

A simple diary is used to provide appropriate record keeping. The approach has been developed to allow businesses to manage food safety and protect consumers. It is recognised that small businesses (particularly in the catering sector) will need assistance to comply with this new legislation. Many businesses will require further guidance to explain how they might comply with this new legislation.

New legislation, came into force in the UK on the 1 January 2006, called the Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2006, and Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the Hygiene of Food Stuffs, that requires food businesses to implement a food safety management system based on the principles of HACCP.

For the first time, it shall be a legal requirement for food businesses to document and verify their food safety management system. We can provide assistance with implementing Food Safety Management Systems based on HACCP principles, as required by the new regulations.

Our half day course will include: Completion of the SFBB pack, to implement food safety management systems based on HACCP principles. One-to-One coaching session on SFBB to businesses.

An introduction to HACCP (Hazard Analysis) training. For more information, please call 0871 2003441.

Safer Food Better Business (SFBB) is a new initiative by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to improve food safety standards. It is a food safety management system, designed to help catering businesses comply with food safety legislation that came into force on 1 January 2006. SFBB offers jargon free, easy to use practical guidance for catering businesses. It provides fact-sheets, which a manager can adapt to their own businesses.

A simple diary is used to provide appropriate record keeping. The approach has been developed to allow businesses to manage food safety and protect consumers. It is recognised that small businesses (particularly in the catering sector) will need assistance to comply with this new legislation. Many businesses will require further guidance to explain how they might comply with this new legislation.

New legislation, came into force in the UK on the 1 January 2006, called the Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2006, and Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the Hygiene of Food Stuffs, that requires food businesses to implement a food safety management system based on the principles of HACCP.

For the first time, it shall be a legal requirement for food businesses to document and verify their food safety management system. We can provide assistance with implementing Food Safety Management Systems based on HACCP principles, as required by the new regulations.

Our half day course will include: Completion of the SFBB pack, to implement food safety management systems based on HACCP principles. One-to-One coaching session on SFBB to businesses.

An introduction to HACCP (Hazard Analysis) training. For more information, please call 0871 2003441.

If a number of people ate at the same venue and have the same food poisoning-type symptoms, this may be due to a Food Poisoning Outbreak. EHO will investigate into the outbreak, which will involve:

interviewing people who are ill
interviewing others who ate at the venue but didn't have symptoms,
taking faecal and food samples (if appropriate) and inspecting the implicated venue.

If there is enough evidence implicating a food premises within the area as a possible source of the outbreak, EHO may decide to carry out a food hygiene inspection.

Once the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) received a food poisoning notification, they will contact the person with the symptoms and ask them questions regarding:

+What and where they've eaten prior to their illness;
+Details of their symptoms;
+Whether they've been on holiday abroad;
+Whether or not their GP has taken a faecal sample and;
+Whether anybody else they ate with also experienced any symptom
+We may request that person to provide a faecal sample.

If a person with symptoms is a food handler or health care/nursery worker who has direct contact or contact through serving food, with highly susceptible patients or persons in whom an intestinal infection would have serious consequences, they cannot return to work until they are symptom-free for 48 hours.

They must also inform their employer of their symptoms. Parents or guardians of children aged under 5 years or children or adults unable to implement good standards of personal hygiene, are advised to keep them away from school or other establishments until they have also been symptom-free for 48 hours.