Insanitary food practice: Don't get caught out

Since the introduction of the sentencing guidelines, the impact of food safety prosecutions is really and truly being felt across the industry. Here we discuss several recent cases.

The owner of The Grape Inn, Teeside were ordered to pay £30,890 after EHO’S found rat droppings in storage areas, poor hygiene disciplines and expired food, both the owner and the chef appeared to have poor food safety knowledge. In addition, the food premises was in a generally poor state of repair making effective cleaning difficult. Collectively, a total of 11 offences were committed, all of which the business owner admitted.

The chef at Yeahya Flavour of Asia in the Nine Elms pub, Swindon appeared to hold no regard for food safety laws. The discovery of brown fingerprints on a bottle led to EHO's discovering that the Chef had been using just water and his bare hands to clean his bottom after defecating, before preparing food. Mr Chowdhury has pleaded guilty to 10 counts of breaching food and hygiene regulations. Mahbub Chowdhury, Swindon Magistrates Court heard, did not use toilet paper for cultural reasons. Chowdhury pleaded guilty to 10 allegations of breaching food and hygiene regulations. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Hopefully the above examples are more extreme than most, however, it is important to ensure that your organisation does not allow standards to slip and end up on the wrong side of the law.

Here are some tips on how CSC can help protect you and your customers:

• We develop comprehensive food safety management systems with our clients, ensuring that all legislative requirements are met.
• Compiling company policies which covers personal hygiene, food handler’s declarations and return to work protocols following illness.
• Our consultative approach enables effective on the job training with members of the kitchen where ownership of internal due diligence systems is made a priority.
• We pride ourselves on providing superior third party food hygiene audits and devising achievable action plans for our client base to ensure that legal compliance is met.
• Bespoke support is also provided for alleged food poisoning investigations and improvements which need to be made following visits from local authority.
• At CSC, our highly experienced food safety team carry out bespoke food safety training sessions with management and kitchen staff covering all legal requirements from HACCP to adopting a managed approach to pest control. For all your training needs contact us. Level 2, 3 and 4 food safety courses are available both on and offline.

Sources and further information:

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/pub-bosses-must-pay-30k-11115633

https://www.thecaterer.com/articles/366619/chef-admits-wiping-bottom-with-bare-hands-before-preparing-food