Food hygiene and the law

Food hygiene and the law
(Food hygiene: a guide for businesses)

Food premises must be clean and be in good repair and condition.

There must be suitable and sufficient hand washing facilities, facilities for washing food and equipment and for storing food.

You must have a 'Food Safety Management System'.

Food handlers must have suitable training and be 'fit to work'.

Further details can be found in the :

'Food hygiene: a guide for businesses' publication - on the Food Standards Agency website

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Food Safety Management System

Food Safety Management Procedures based on the principles of HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points) must be in place.

If you have food that needs to be kept cold you need to write your procedures down and keep records to show your checks.

These only need to be simple if you have a small business. See:

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E.Coli

Food Businesses must take steps to control the risk of food being contaminated by E.Coli 0157. Please see:

'E.Coli 0157: Control of cross contamination' - on the Food Standards Agency website

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Training

Food handlers must be supervised and trained in food hygiene to a level that is appropriate for the work that they do.

Although it is not a legal requirement to attend a formal course, many food businesses find that this is the best way to ensure that their staff gain the knowledge required, in addition to on the job training.

The Chartered Institue of Environmental Health (CIEH) list courses:

Courses and training - on the CIEH website

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Fitness to work

Staff must not handle food or enter a food handling area if they:

are suffering from, or carrying, a disease likely to be transmitted via food
have diarrhoea and/or vomiting
have infected wounds, skin infections or sores

For more information see:

'Food Handlers: Fitness to Work - A Practical Guide for Food Business' - on the Food Standards Agency website

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Food composition and labelling - Trading Standards

You can find out about Food Law Enforcement and Food Composition and Labelling by contacting West Sussex County Council's Trading Standards service:

Trading standards - on the West Sussex County Council website

For further information please see also:

Labelling guidance - on the Food Standards Agency website

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Pest control

Food premises must be pest proofed and food businesses must carry out regular checks for food pests such as rats, mice, cockroaches and flying insects.

For more information see pest control.

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Imported food

If you wish to import food into the country please follow the link for more information:

Imported food - on the Food Standards Agency website

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Waste management

Food businesses should have closable containers for the storage of waste and arrange to have it regularly removed by an authorised waste carrier. For details of the Council’s service for commercial premises please see:

Commercial waste collection service

For the disposal of animal by-products including raw meat from butchers shops please see:

Controls on animal by-products - on the gov.uk website

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Business support and advice

We want your business to be successful and recommend that you speak to our Economic Development team before you finalise your plans. They can give business support and advice.

For further information see our business support and advice section.

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