Food safety management is key for businesses and establishments that serve, handle or prepare food in any capacity. You must ensure that you have the correct food safety management procedures in place to adhere to UK Law and prevent fines and punishment. Food businesses must ensure that their food practices minimise the risk of harm to the consumer. This includes making sure that your food is safe to eat and will not cause harm. This blog post will walk you through what exactly is needed for a business to remain safe and hygienic for consumers.

Food Safety Basics

There are a lot of terms and definitions when it comes to food safety. To put it basically, you must ensure that your food is safe to eat. You must not treat, add or remove food in a way that makes it harmful to consume. The food must be the quality you say it is, and the labelling should not be misleading. Withdraw any unsafe food and complete an incident report, and tell people why your food has been withdrawn if necessary. Finally, make sure you display your food hygiene rating in a prominent and accessible place if you sell food directly to the public.

The 4Cs of Food Hygiene

The four main things to remember are the 4Cs. These are:

• Cleaning. You should clean and disinfect food areas and equipment between different tasks and do not let food waste build-up.
• Cooking. This varies depending on what you are cooking, but the standard advice is to cook food until it has reached a core temperature of 70°C for 2 minutes.
• Chilling. Chilling food properly helps to stop harmful bacteria from growing.
• Cross-contamination. Prevent food from harmful cross-contamination, especially when it comes to raw food.

Basic Requirements For Professional Kitchens

Kitchen facilities need to meet some basic requirements in order to comply with the Guidance on Food Safety and Kitchen Hygiene HS10.2 from the UK Government. This includes the following:

• The kitchen must be built in a way that allows you to keep the place hygienic and clean. It must also be designed to keep out flies, rats and other pests.
• The kitchen must have enough washbasins for staff to wash their hands.
• There must be enough toilets. These must not lead directly into food areas.
• Basins must have hot and cold running water. Soap and other materials for washing and drying hands must be supplied. Hand-washing signage is recommended.
• Changing facilities, when needed, should be provided.
• Arrangements must be made for food waste and other rubbish to be stored and removed.
• There must be adequate supplies of drinking water for the staff.

Where you are preparing food, the guidance is a little different than kitchens.

• Floors and walls, and surfaces in contact with food, must be in a sound condition. They must be easy to clean and (where necessary) to disinfect.
• Ceilings must be designed and constructed in a way that prevents condensation, build-up of dirt, moulds, and shedding of particles and paint flakes.
• Windows and doors and any other openings must be designed and built in a way that prevents dirt from building up.
• All equipment that comes into contact with food must be kept in good repair and be made in a way that allows it to be cleaned thoroughly and disinfected.
• You must have a separate sink for washing food, equipment & utensils and hands. These must not contaminate or overlap each other and must be clearly labelled.

HACCP Food Plan

If you run a food business, you must have a plan based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles.

A hazard is something dangerous and a food-related hazard is something that can make your food unsafe or unfit to eat. There are three main types of food safety hazards. Microbiological - involving harmful bacteria, chemical - involving chemical contamination and physical - involving objects getting into food.

Hot & Cold Food Rules

When it comes to the serving and display of food, there are strict rules to prevent bad food from being served. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) sets the danger zone between 8 °C and 63°C. This is the range you want to keep your food out of

Food that should normally be kept at or below 8ºC may be kept above that temperature for a single period of four hours to allow it to be served or displayed (for example, food on a buffet table or a cheese trolley). After this period it should either be thrown away or chilled back to 8ºC or below until used.

Hot food must be kept at a temperature of 63°C or above. Food can be held at this temperature for up to 2 hours. If food is taken out of hot holding for display, it must be reheated until it is steaming hot before being put back. If food is not used within 2 hours, it must be chilled down as quickly as possible to 8°C or below. Hot food should be cooled to the lowest temperature within 90 minutes.

Food should also be labelled with its use-by date to prevent food poisoning. Colour-coded guides can be used for day-by-day labelling. Hot and cold food should be stored separately as well to prevent bacteria growth or cross-contamination. Having separate fridges and hot cupboards helps to keep these items safe and ready to serve.

Allergen Safety

Food businesses need to tell customers if any of their food contains the 14 identified allergens as ingredients. These are celery, cereals containing gluten (such as wheat, rye, barley, and oats), crustaceans (such as prawns, crabs and lobsters), eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs (such as mussels and oysters), mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites (if the sulphur dioxide and sulphites are at a concentration of more than ten parts per million) and tree nuts (such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts).

Food Safety Done Right With Cooksmill

Food safety is absolutely vital. It prevents illnesses and food poisoning, allergic reactions, and ensures your establishment can remain open and continue serving to the public. Cooksmill takes food safety seriously, we have a wide range of guidance posters to further illustrate the general rules, and a range of general kitchen signage to make it easy for staff to follow the rules. Shop everything you need for the utmost kitchen hygiene with us and enjoy free, fast shipping on orders over £60 (excluding VAT).