To assist the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in monitoring the public’s perception of food safety issues, the agency commissions a Biannual Public Attitude Tracker. A set of 10 questions asked to consumers in a face to face survey, the latest omnibus survey took place between the 6th and 17th of November 2013 (wave 7), with findings released this month.
Using a representative sample of 5,509 adults within the UK, they asked both spontaneous and prompted questions, food hygiene when eating out (36%) and food poisoning (26%) were listed within the top three safety issues for consumers.
Over three quarters of respondents (82%) reported that they are aware of the hygiene standards in places they eat out at or buy food from and worryingly just under half of respondents (49%) reported concern about food safety in UK restaurants, pubs, cafes and takeaways.
With both awareness and concern being an issue for consumers, how can eateries put their customers at ease and give confidence in the food safety of their establishments?
1) Implementing and managing a robust food safety system
Whatever size or type of food establishment you own, food safety regulations must be followed to ensure that customers are consuming food prepared and served under safe conditions and thoroughly cooked to prevent food poisoning.
A robust food safety management system based on the principals of HACCP with clear and practical procedures can help you plan your food preparation activities and eliminate the risk of poor food hygiene and hygiene practices, ensuring your food is safe to eat.
So what are the common mistakes food establishments make with their food safety management system?
To put it simply, having a well-documented food safety management system is not enough!
A common mistake is the failure of management to undertake regular detailed compliance audits to ensure hygiene standards are being met and procedures are being followed effectively by their employees. Undertaking regular audits can provide comfort that your practices are safe and compliant and can also provide valuable insight into areas of improvement and most importantly send an underlying message to your employees, that food safety is important to your business and your customers.
Another common mistake often overlooked by food establishments, is the failure to undertake regular reviews of their food safety management system and as a result procedures and practices are often not kept up to date with new food safety requirements or operational changes.
2) Create a culture of food safety with your employees
When asked during the survey about the main ways respondents become aware of hygiene standards in places they eat out or buy food from; general appearance of premises and appearance of staff where both noted by consumers.
By creating a culture within your organisation that food safety is at the heart of your business and of the utmost importance, staff will start to take pride in both the appearance of your premises and in their own personal hygiene.
How do you create a culture of food safety?
As mentioned, having a robust and up to date food safety management system along with regular compliance audits sends an underlying message to your staff on how seriously you take food safety and therefore is the foundation of your culture.
You do however need to build on those foundations get them to take food safety just as seriously as you do.
Tackling the personal hygiene of your staff as part of your food safety management system will of course play a key role in achieving this and provide consumers with the confidence they need. Don Meredith, Technical Director for Food Safety at Santia Consulting Ltd advises, “The personal hygiene of all staff likely to come into contact with food is of the utmost importance when it comes to food safety. A key characteristic of personal hygiene is of course ensuring that staff understand they are required to wash their hands after using the rest room. In addition, measures should also be taken to ensure staff cover hair and cuts on the body, wear clean clothes to work and cover their mouth and nose when sneezing, coughing and of course, then washing their hands again”.
The most fundamental action an employer can take in building a culture of food safety, is without doubt undertaking basic food safety training. Your employees must know not only what is expected of them from both a legal and company policy perspective, but have an understanding of the consequences of not adopting both rigours procedural and personal hygiene standards.
Training should be undertaken as part of an employee’s induction whether they are permanent, temporary, through an agency or working full or part time. Regular refresher training should also take place especially when new legislation comes into effect.
It is of course, important to acknowledge that the time and cost of training employees can present a challenge especially for small businesses, however, you should not underestimate the value and impact that regular training can have on your food safety practices and culture. In today’s digital world there are a number of online training courses that are cost effective from both a price and time perspective. Undertaking tool box talks at the start of every shift is also another great inexpensive way of training your teams.
3) Get help from professionals
Using food safety experts such as Santia Consulting can provide your business with much needed resources and expertise, allowing you and your management teams to spend less time managing risk and more time running and growing your business.
Our experienced and qualified team of food safety experts provide peace of mind when it comes to:
• Preventing cases of food poisoning
• Demonstrating due diligence
• Protecting your business reputation
• Complying with local government regulations
We can provide you with both a robust food safety management system that is site specific and ensures relevance to your business, and our second and trained pair of eyes will ensure that you are in line with the applicable regulatory requirements. At Santia we take pride in offering a consultative approach meaning you have guidance and advice on how to improve, implement and ensure compliance. We believe in offering practicable and actionable advice, at the right level, in order to build rewarding relationships based on meeting your goals and aspirations.
Whether you are new businesses looking for a food safety manual or an established food business that requires consultancy on a particular issue or a gap analysis of your current food safety management system; our experienced and qualified food safety team are on hand to help. We also offer an extensive range of high quality and competitively priced food safety training courses available online, in house or at our state of the art training centre near Cardiff, South Wales.
To find out more on how Santia can help your food business and regain consumer confidence, click here or contact us on 029 20 859311.