The impact of the Sentencing Guidelines are being felt across the foods industry with astronomical fines now been issued for both food safety and health and safety related offences regardless of whether actual harm has occurred.
The Pontypool branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken has been fined £100,000 after being found guilty of operating without hot water for 10 days in May 2015. Torfaen County Borough Council prosecuted KFC for three offences following an inspection in May 2015 when an EHO found that the water supply had been waiting for repair for over 10 days. The inspecting EHO found a number of other cleaning issues.
KFC immediately voluntarily closed the premises until the hot water boiler had been repaired and to allow deep cleaning to take place. It was awarded a food hygiene score of ‘4’ when a full re-inspection was carried out in September 2015.
The sentence that was issued by the court was based on the fact that the offence fell into the medium culpability range with the level of harm falling into category two range. The Company turnover of £50 M in the UK was also taken into account to reach the figure of £100K.
To ensure that your food operation is kept safe from the risk of prosecution, contact CSC to assist with implementation, monitoring and maintaining of food safety standards.
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