Health & Safety 101: Food-Centric Businesses

When you own a food-centric business, whether it is a restaurant, café, supermarket, or food stall, you need to be aware of and adhere to the food safety practices in place. This is both for the safety of those who consume the food and your business overall, as failing to comply can lead to the closure of your business as well as legal action in some cases. Read on for more information.

Setting Up

Before you set up your business, regardless of what it is, you need to make sure that you have registered it with the relevant bodies; this might be the local authority, the food standards agency, and environmental health, et cetera. Be sure to do your research to make sure that you have fully complied with the registration process beforehand. It is important that you put your best foot forward.

Labeling

If you are creating the food or cooking the food on sight to package and sell, then you need to be aware of the labelling restrictions. Foods need to list all allergens and ingredients on the packaging for consumers to read. The packaging can also not be misleading in any way. This hasn’t always been the case; food made in front of consumers didn’t need labels, nor did food made on sight if there was signage encouraging consumers to ask about allergens.

Accounts

Food-centric businesses have to keep a lot of accounts. They need to keep accounts of all ingredient suppliers and any businesses that they have, in turn, supplied to. Records of allergens also need to be kept, and any health and safety procedures in place to ensure that the food stored, supplied, and sold is safe for consumers. These records will need to be kept for a certain amount of time in case the regulatory authorities conduct an inspection.

Storage

Regardless of what form of food-centric business you run, the likelihood is that you will need to store the food safely. This might mean the storage of raw ingredients or the storage and display of stock. Either way, when it comes to storing food, there are a few things to consider. You will need to be mindful of cross-contamination. It is also imperative that you make sure that you are storing the food at the right temperatures in order to avoid it going bad. This article from the Dantherm Group goes into a little more detail.

Cleanliness

Finally, cleanliness is also paramount when running a food-centric business. It helps to reduce the risk of cross-contamination, and it ensures that areas are clean of germs, bacteria, and even segregation between allergens. In addition to keeping the work area clean, it is also incredibly important that workers are washing their hands, use gloves, wear aprons, and keep their hair out of the way too.

The Takeaway

When owning, operating, or working within a food-centric business, the truth is that you have certain responsibilities and obligations when it comes to ensuring the health and safety of consumers and other members of staff too. The above is by no means an exhaustive look at the health and safety considerations that you will have to deal with, but it does represent the basics.