New legislation brings hygiene clarity for hospitality operators

Food hygiene: Getting it right

An unfavourable environmental health inspection can be incredibly costly for hospitality businesses. Clearly, if legal action is taken, it could be catastrophic and many businesses have not survived the poor publicity or the fines, which can now be extremely high.

Furthermore, a 20% – 50% drop in trade is common for an establishment that receives a poor Food Hygiene Rating particularly when you receive negative local publicity or press. For a small or medium sized establishment, the losses in such circumstances typically run to tens of thousands of pounds. That is in addition to the costs of appealing or paying for a revisit plus any cost of correcting the problems identified.

Previous uncertainty

Before this new legislation, hospitality businesses had been subject to environmental health regimes which could vary between each of the 326 enforcement authorities in England. This meant that in different regions there could be different standards and contradictory advice given by Environmental Health Officers (EHO).

Such examples include:

• That purple chopping boards must be used when preparing allergenic foods
• That food must be cooled to below 8ºC in 90 minutes
• That food handlers must legally receive 6 hours of level 2 hygiene training

In some cases, this resulted in EHOs demanding more of restaurants than may be strictly necessary, blurring the lines between legal requirements and recommendations, sometimes resulting in the restaurant’s food hygiene rating suffering.

Industry wide standards

None of the examples above are correct in all circumstances, and following this new legislation, as well as the standards set in the BHA’S Catering Guide, businesses will now be able to rely on the agreed levels required for compliance. They will also have the support of Cornwall Council if challenged by an EHO.