Blaby District Council

Summary

Food legislation places an obligation on food business operators to ensure that all their activities are carried out in a hygienic way and makes it an offence to supply food which is unsafe or harmful to human health. Local Authorities are responsible for ensuring that businesses comply with these requirements. Environmental health teams deal with hygiene except at primary production (farms), where Trading Standards and other bodies have responsibility.

Environmental Health Officers at Blaby District Council have delegated powers for the enforcement of Food Safety Legislation. To make sure that enforcement decisions are consistent with statutory guidance and across all enforcement functions within the council, Cabinet adopted a new Environmental Health and Licensing Enforcement Policy in September 2009.

Downloads

• Environmental Health Service Plan 2009 - 2010 (PDF, 154KB)
• Environmental Health and Licensing Enforcement Policy (PDF, 142KB)

Further information

Hazard Analysis, Food Safety Management Procedures and Safer Food Better Business (SFBB)

Are you complying with food safety law and have you got a documented Food Safety Management System in place? If not.... then help is at hand!

You should be aware that from January 2006 new European Community Food Hygiene Regulations replaced the previous Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995. Proprietors of food businesses are still required to identify food safety hazards and risks relevant to their business, and to put in place procedures to prevent problems. However you are now also required to provide some simple written evidence that your procedures to ensure food safety have been thought through carefully and are being properly applied.

• You must examine all food operations carried out within your business, including purchase, storage, handling, preparation, cooking, service and transport, and ensure that at each stage, the food is being treated in a safe and hygienic way.
• When you examine your food business operations in this way, you will be able to identify where food safety problems may arise, and ensure that you and your staff have the necessary procedures in place at any critical points, to control these food safety problems.
• Examples of hazards you should consider are the presence of harmful bacteria in raw meat, the growth of harmful bacteria in foods stored at room temperature, cross-contamination between raw and cooked foods, contamination by pests, physical contamination, and chemical contamination.
• This close examination of your food business operations, known as a Food Safety Management Procedure is not difficult to carry out and the controls you put in place can be very simple

In order to comply with this requirement from 2006, you can either:

1. Produce your own Food Safety Management System, this can be simple and the amount of detail required will differ from business to business depending on the size and nature of the activities you undertake.
2. You can also follow the guidance issued by the Food Standards Agency which is called Safer Food Better Business. This will guide you through how to comply and provide the necessary documentation.

You can order or download a free copy of the Safer Food Better Business Pack direct from the Food Standards Agency or pick up a copy free of charge from the Council Offices.

External websites

• Food Standards Agency

Contact us

Officer / Team	Commercial Environmental Health Team
Postal address	Blaby District Council Council Offices Desford Road Narborough Leicester LE19 2EP
E-mail address	env.health@blaby.gov.uk
Telephone	0116 272 7555
Fax	0116 272 7594

If you need this information in other languages or formats (large print, Braille or audio), please let us know when you contact us.

This page was last updated on 23rd December 2009