Food Hygiene Inspections – What to Expect

If you own a food premises you will be inspected by your local council as a way of controlling risks and ensuring that the public aren’t in any danger from foodborne illnesses originating from your business. The majority of routine food hygiene inspections are carried out without prior notice to make sure that standards are kept high at all times.

The following objectives are taken from Dudley Council’s guidelines but will apply to all food businesses in the UK. The main objectives are:

• to determine whether the food business is complying with the relevant food safety legislation
• to gather information through observations and discussions with food handlers, managers and proprietors
• to identify potential hazards and associated risks to public health
• to assess the effectiveness of process controls implemented to safeguard food
• to assess the hazard analysis or Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point based food safety management systems operated by the business
• to identify specific contraventions of food safety legislation
• to consider the most appropriate course of enforcement action to secure compliance with food safety legislation
• to provide advice and information to food business proprietors and food handlers
• to provide recommendations of practical, good food hygiene practices
• to promote the continued improvements of food hygiene standards through the adoption of good practice

Training

Food inspectors/EHOs will want to check that all managers and food handlers have been adequately trained to work safely with and around food. All managers and food handlers should be trained to at least Level 2 in Food Safety, which covers food poisoning, cross contamination, personal hygiene, law, HACCP, cleaning and waste management amongst other important topics.

Training does not have to be expensive or time-consuming – individuals or managers can buy online courses on www.eskyweb.com and be training in minutes. The courses are audited and recognised by EHOs so will satisfy an inspector when they come to view your training records.
For more information about the course itself visit our Food Safety page: http://www.eskyweb.com/e-learning/foodsafety/