Food Safety - Communicable Disease
The latest food safety Regulations brought together and extended the requirements of the existing UK food hygiene laws, but here's the important bit - if you run a food business you will now need to have a documented food safety management system. In other words, you will need to say what you do to make food that is safe to eat and have this written down. The amount of documentation you will need will be related to the type of food you prepare/handle and the risks presented by your business.
A full Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system is more suited to food manufacturers who produce large amounts of similar foods. This system doesn't easily work in a restaurant or pub kitchen where the menu continually changes and is made up of lots of different menu items, and many people have had difficulty in understanding it.
We therefore needed to consider how you can comply with these new requirements without introducing an unnecessary burden. Following extensive consultation with the catering industry the Food Standards Agency has developed "Safer Food Better Business" (SFBB)
Safer Food Better Business is a simple fact sheet system that tells you how to ensure that the major potential hazards in your catering business, namely those to do with avoiding cross-contamination, cleaning, chilling and cooking (the "4 C's"),can be safely controlled. It is designed to be simple, and can easily be made to fit your catering business.
Each SFBB pack is split into five sections containing a number of fact sheets called Safe Methods. Typical safe methods would include instructions on "Cooking Food Safely" and "Reheating" for example. The idea is that you look at the pack and decide which safe methods apply to your business, and then follow them. There are about twenty methods in total covering aspects of the "4C's", but not all of them will apply to all businesses.
A simple diary is also provided, for appropriate record keeping. This also includes a four-weekly review to ensure that the document remains up-to-date and to allow common problems to be identified and addressed.
So you need to have a documented food safety management system - it doesn't have to be SFBB, but any alternative may involve a lot of work for you if you do not already have such a system in place.
Safer Food Better Business provides you with a documented food safety management system that will ensure you comply with the requirements of the new law as long as you follow it.
It is designed to cut jargon, and can be easily recognised, and will be taken into businesses all over England. It will help ensure that you produce safe food and may result in fewer visits by your Food Enforcement Officer. Above all it's free!
Ensuring all our food Businesses comply with these new requirements will be a huge undertaking and something that will take time and effort by business and us.
To assist with this the Food Standards Agency has made money available to Councils to provide coaching to food catering businesses on the new law and the use of the SFBB pack.
The four South Yorkshire Authorities, Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley have been successful in a bid for funding, and will be using the money awarded to implement an 18 month coaching programme in some 2000 premises across South Yorkshire.
The coaching will be undertaken in conjunction with CMI a private food hygiene consultancy approved by the Food Standards Agency, who will initially run introductory seminars and then visit premises to provide coaching and guidance on the implementation of the pack.
During this period Doncaster Council will continue to provide advice and guidance to all our premises on any issues that may arise.
The following information is provided in response to some of the questions you will undoubtedly have, however if you have any other questions please let us know.
Over the past ten years more and more food hygiene legislation has been introduced to ensure the continued control of the risks presented by an ever changing food industry. This has resulted in more than fifteen separate pieces of legislation, making it difficult for businesses to be clear on what they need to do in order to comply with the law. A number of these pieces of legislation are also now outdated.
Initially the packs are being supplied to those premises which have been included in the first round of coaching; however, in time the pack will be provided to all catering premises that do not currently have a food safety management system in place.
Premises included in the first round of coaching have been selected on specific criteria based on the size of business and current standard of food safety management. If you have not been selected for the first phase of coaching, you may be selected for phase two.
The packs are to be provided free of charge, although the implementation will require your time to complete each section.
It is suggested that each of the five sections should take one hour to work through and complete, it is suggested that food businesses complete one section per week.
Once you have implemented the system, you need to ensure that it is adhered to by you and your employees. You should also review your diary every 4 weeks and when operations change, such as style of cooking, use of new equipment.
With SFBB, filling out the diary is the only daily record you will need to complete. This should only take a couple of minutes each day.
You don't need to keep lots of records. Once you have worked through the safe methods, you will have a record of what your business does to make sure the food is safe to eat. This will only need to be reviewed and amended if you change the way your food business operates.
Keeping a written record of fridge temperatures is good practice, and helps to highlight when a problem arises. SFBB still requires you to monitor fridge temperatures, but you would only need to record problems that have arisen and what you have done to correct them.
If you want to continue writing down the fridge temperatures and cooking temperatures daily then you can.
The seminars and coaching sessions should provide you with sufficient knowledge and information to successfully implement and maintain the pack.
Yes, as explained above the four South Yorkshire Authorities, in conjunction with an independent consultant, will be running a number of seminars and coaching sessions to ensure that businesses can successfully implement the new requirements.
After the pack has been successfully implemented, Doncaster Council will continue to provide advice and guidance on the pack and all other aspects of food safety.
No. We are aware that some premises may already have a documented food safety system in place which has either been provided by their parent company, or has been developed in-house. If you already have one of these systems then it may mean that you already comply with the new requirements. You are however advised to speak to your company or contact us for further advice.
Yes.
Although the new regulations came into force on the 1 January 2006, sufficient time will be allowed for all food businesses to comply.
The new regulations require you to implement a documented food safety system. SFBB has been developed to assist food businesses in complying with this new requirement .
Ultimately if you choose not to use SFBB and do not implement and maintain any other suitable system, Doncaster Council may take legal action in line with its enforcement policy. In view of the extensive free training and coaching that is being offered we hope that such legal action will not be necessary.
Initially Doncaster will be targeting 750 premises for SFBB implementation. These businesses will be approached on a rolling programme from October 2006 and will be invited to attend an initial seminar. Those that wish to go forward with the initiative will then receive personal tuition on the SFBB pack. If your business isn't one of those initial batch we are looking at, don't worry. We will ensure that you are not left out and will not take enforcement action against you for not having a documented food safety management system. You will, of course, need to make sure that your business complies with the other requirements of the new food hygiene legislation, which is similar to the current food safety requirements.
If you have any further questions on the new food hygiene legislation please contact a member of our Food & Safety team on 01302 737572.
