Food Safety FAQs
Disclaimer
These questions and answers are intended to provide general guidance. They should not be regarded as an exhaustive definitive statement of the law.
- Do all my staff have to go on a recognised food hygiene course?
- What temperature records should I be keeping and how often should I take them ?
- I took the basic Food Hygiene Course 10 years ago. Is the certificate still valid ?
- A customer complained they ate a meal here last night and were ill the next day. Is it due to food poisoning from my restaurant?
- How often will my food business be inspected?
- Why aren't the same standards enforced on the Continent?
- Should my staff wear disposable gloves when handling food?
- I want to take the Advanced Food Hygiene Course. Do I have to do the Intermediate Course first?
- How do I produce a written Food Safety Management System?
- What will customers be looking for in eating places?
- I run a small club and we serve tea, cakes and biscuits to members. do we need to follow food hygiene regulations?
- Are people who work in supermarkets required to have qualifications in basic hygiene?
- What is the Food Standards Agency's advice to caterers on using eggs?
- How long should you leave food out on a buffet?
Do all my staff have to go on a recognised food hygiene course?
We recommend that all people involved in handling food should go on a Foundation level food hygiene course. Your legal responsibility is to supervise, instruct and or train your staff to a level suitable for the job they do. If someone is handling open, high risk foods like cooked ham then they should hold a recent Food Hygiene Certificate.
What temperature records should I be keeping and how often should I take them?
You need to look at what steps or stages there are in the way you handle, prepare and sell foods. We would strongly recommend you check and either record that they are satisfactory as part of your opening and closing checks or record refrigeration and freezer temperatures twice daily, at the following points:
- Delivery/ goods in
- Backup storage i.e.fridge and freezers
- Post preparation storage (if different from above)
- Display counters
We also strongly advise you use a probe thermometer to check the core temperature of foods being cooked, reheated or kept hot to ensure any food poisoning bacteria are killed and cannot multiply. These should also be recorded and the probe thermometer sanitised before use.
The temperatures should be:
- Refrigerated foods less than 8 degrees C (ideally 1-5 degrees C)
- Frozen foods -18 degrees C or colder
- Cooked foods more than 75 degrees C
- Hot Hold foods 63 degrees C or above
I took the Basic Food Hygiene Course 10 years ago. Is my certificate still valid ?
Your certificate is still valid but it is generally recommended that after 10 years you should either attend a refresher course or sit a Foundation Level Food Hygiene Course to ensure you are aware of all the hygiene requirements and any changes in the law that have occured since you gained the certificate.
A customer complained they ate a meal here last night and were ill the next day. Is it due to food poisoning from my restaurant?
Without talking to the customer it would be impossible for us to say. We would advise that you politely suggest they visit their doctor and contact us to enable us to investigate the allegation.
How often will my food business be inspected? The frequency with which we inspect your premises is determined by what you do, how hygienically you do it, how many customers you have and whether they are in an 'at risk' group, i.e. elderly or young children. Dependant on what we find when we carry out an inspection we can visit from at least every 6 months to every 5 years. Most premises dealing with high risk foods are visited once every 12 or 18 months. Inspectors will discuss the timing of your next inspection with you at the end of each inspection.
Why aren't the same standards enforced on the Continent?
Food hygiene legislation in EU member states is dictated by a series of EU food Directives. Member states then form their own laws to implement these. This can lead to some minor variations in the laws.
However, each member state has its own system for enforcing the laws and this can lead to greater variation in application. The EU is currently looking at its food hygiene Directives with a view to simplifying and unifying legislation. This should help improve issues of consistency.
Should my staff wear disposable gloves when handling food?
Many people believe that wearing disposable gloves helps prevent the risk of cross contamination of foods due to staff hygiene and handling problems. In some circumstances they may be of benefit but they must be changed frequently. The outside of the glove is just as likely to become contaminated as a hand so the gloves should be thrown away every time the food handler would normally wash their hands.
People do percieve that their hands are still clean even though the gloves they are wearing aren't and so don't change them frequently enough and this can lead to problems. It is generally recommended that following a proper hand washing regime is better than using disposable gloves in most circumstances.
I want to take the Advanced Food Hygiene Course. Do I have to do the Intermediate Course first?
You do not have to attend an Intermediate Level Course before starting an Advanced Food Hygiene Certificate Course. However, we would recommend that unless you already have a good working knowledge of food businesses and hygiene problems, particularly with regard to bacteriology, it would be advisable to try the Intermediate Course first.
How do I produce a written Food Safety Management System?
You are required by law to identify any steps in the way you operate your food business which are absolutely critical to food safety and to put in place suitable procedures to prevent any risk of illness to your customers. This is generally called Hazard Analysis. Your written Food Safety Management System needs to show that you have identified any hazards and have controls in place to ensure you produce, handle, and store food safely.
The Food Standards Agency have produced a system which you can tailor to suit your catering or retail business. It is called Safer Food Better Business and you can download or order it from the Food Standards Agency.
What will customers be looking for in eating places?
Did you know that most of your customers take high standards of food hygiene and cleanliness for granted when they eat out? They assume things will be right - as part and parcel of the eating experience.
It is only if they see things that upset or annoy them about food hygiene or general cleanliness that they will start to become concerned. The bad news is that research shows that most customers, if they do become concerned will not report their worries to staff, they will leave and are unlikely to return. What’s more, they are likely to tell their family and friends.
It all comes down to the cliché: You are unlikely to get a second chance to make a good first impression!
Here are the top clues that customers are likely to judge your performance on in terms of food hygiene and cleanliness. They have been divided for your ease of use, into positive and negative points. Work your way through the list and make sure that you satisfy the positive points and customers will never witness the warning signs.
Positive Points
- Hot food is served hot and cooked right the way through, unless it has been ordered otherwise.
- Cold food is served cold.
- On a carvery, salad bar or delicatessen counter, dishes of food are not just topped-up, but the whole dish is changed.
- Clean public areas
- Staff wash their hands between different tasks (like serving raw meat and then ready-to-eat foods or cleaning and clearing tables and then going on to serve ready-to-eat foods).
- If customers can see into kitchens as doors open or behind serveries they are clean and reasonably tidy.
- Clean and smart looking staff who are dressed for the job.
Warning signs
- Overflowing waste-bins and dirty or untidy rubbish areas.
- Dirty looking staff, with dirty hands or fingernails or dirty habits.
- Staff wearing dirty overalls, uniforms or aprons and long hair that is not tied back.
- Dirty toilets and wash hand basins and a lack of soap and toilet paper.
- Dirty tables, cutlery, crockery and glassware.
- Hair, insects or other matter in the food.
- Food on sale past its ‘Use-By’ date.
- Raw foods (especially raw meat) stored right next to cooked foods or the same utensils used for both.
If you would like to know more then contact Dr Jeremy Leach
I run a small club and we serve tea, cakes and biscuits to members. do we need to follow food hygiene regulations?
If you run a club, or similar small group, and provide food to members at meetings or other events, then you might have to comply with food safety and hygiene legislation. This is still the case if you don't make a profit from the refreshments.
There isn't a straightforward answer to which clubs are covered by the regulations and which aren't, because this could depend on a number of things. If you serve refreshments to a few friends at home, then the regulations probably wouldn't apply, because food prepared at home for domestic purposes is exempt.
If, for example, your club is more formally organised, meetings are held in a rented building rather than at home, or there is a charge for membership, then food safety and hygiene legislation might apply to you. Local authorities are in the best position to determine whether the legislation applies to clubs, according to individual circumstances.
You might also need to register with your local authority if you meet frequently and provide food at the meetings. To find out more about what regulations apply to your situation, contact the environmental health department at your local authority.
Whether or not the regulations apply to your club, you should always follow good hygiene when preparing food for yourself or other people. For example, you should do the following things:
- Always wash your hands before preparing food.
- Keep ready-to-eat foods, such as cakes and biscuits, away from raw food, especially raw meat.
- Keep cakes and desserts in the fridge if they contain fresh cream or butter-cream icing, or if they say 'Keep refrigerated' on the packaging. Don't leave them out at room temperature.
- Use clean tongs or a cake slice to serve cakes.
Are people who work in supermarkets required to have qualifications in basic hygiene?
Under UK law, food businesses, including supermarkets, must ensure that all staff who handle food are supervised, instructed and/or trained in food hygiene in a way that is appropriate to the work they do. In practice, this means that anyone who handles food should be instructed in the basics of good food hygiene before they start work.
Staff working with unwrapped foods, for example on the deli counter, should receive more formal hygiene training to ensure they handle and prepare food safely. This training doesn’t have to lead to a formal qualification or certificate. What matters the most is that the staff know enough about food hygiene, and apply their knowledge effectively in their daily work, to make sure the food they handle is safe to eat.
What is the Food Standards Agency's advice to caterers on using eggs?
The Agency recommends the use of pasteurised eggs, rather than shell eggs, in products that won’t be cooked or will be only lightly cooked before eating.
Effective pasteurisation kills any potentially harmful bacteria, such as salmonella, so pasteurised egg is safer to use in these kind of products than shell eggs, which can sometimes contain salmonella.
Caterers should be especially careful when catering for the elderly, the sick, babies and toddlers, and pregnant women. These groups should not be served raw or partially cooked (e.g. soft-boiled) eggs or products containing these. Download or order a leaflet on eggs.
How long should you leave food out on a buffet? In general, foods that need to be chilled (which include most of the foods people tend to serve on buffets and most sandwich fillings) should be left out of the fridge for the shortest time possible. If they are left at room temperature for a long time, bacteria can grow or toxins can form, and both of these could cause food poisoning.
If you are preparing a buffet at home for friends or family, there aren't any regulations that specify a maximum time that food can be left out but, in the interests of safety, you should try and keep it short (not more than a couple of hours). Then any remaining food should be thrown away or put back in the fridge. If you keep leftovers in the fridge, don't let them stand around at room temperature when you serve them again.
However, if you are preparing a buffet (or any other food) as part of a business, or even on a voluntary basis for a charitable or community event, you must follow food safety regulations. The law requires caterers to keep certain foods at specified temperatures for food safety reasons. Chilled foods must be kept at or below 8ºC, while foods that are being kept hot before serving should remain at or above 63ºC.
The law allows food to be left at room temperature for limited periods during service or when on display. The temperature of chilled foods can exceed 8ºC for up to four hours, while the temperature of hot foods can fall below 63ºC for a maximum of two hours. However, these flexibilities can be used only once for each batch of food. In other words, the same food can't be left out at room temperature for more than one period, even if the separate periods add up to a combined total of four (or two) hours. After one period at room temperature, food should be thrown away or chilled until final use.