A common problem for food businesses
I have been inspecting and supporting food businesses for over 20 years, and in this time I have seen businesses fail that could potentially be a great success. This is often because their food safety management is substandard potentially putting customers at risk.
The good news is there are a number of very obvious solutions to this problem. They usually fall into 3 areas being:
- Food Safety Management
- Staffing
- Training
1. Food Safety Management
Managing food safety is something you need to do every day. Putting the following systems in place will help everything run like clockwork and get food safety culture firmly embedded into your business.
- a food safety management system based on HACCP principles (legal requirement) See my blog for more information on How to get your head around Food Safety Management Systems
- Be registered with your Local Authority (legal requirement). See link Food Business Registration
- A monitoring system – all your daily checks in one place either as a digital system like the FSL Kitchen Daily Diary or a paper version
- Safe working practices for allergens, vac pack machines etc to help your staff get these practices right
- Training records – evidence that your staff know how to do their jobs and prepare safe food. See online and face to face training
2. Staffing
The Hospitality staffing crisis post COVID restrictions in the UK has caused many issues for food businesses including not having experienced staff to manage food safety day-to day.
Food safety monitoring records need signing off by a member of staff who understands food safety risks and how to manage them. Getting the right people in place can take pressure of you as the business owner to do everything yourself.
Your staff must also understand your business operations, recording when things go wrong and the action they took. This links to the next section on training.
3. Training
Staff training is key to getting food safety right, whether on the job or via online, virtual or face to face training courses.
Your staff need to have the knowledge and skills on food safety and what the critical control points are in the food they produce and serve.
All kitchen and food service staff must have allergen awareness training. They need to understand how food for someone with a food allergy can become contaminated. Also how to signpost customers and give accurate information on allergens.
The Digital Daily Diary
If you want to get food safety right in your food business check out the digital Food Safety Logic daily diary as part of your food safety management system. All your monitoring checks in one place. Designed by EHO’s for food businesses.
