Posted By Safety110 Hi All, I am looking for someone who can tell me where I can get Food Hygiene Policy. A Friend has asked for one for his restaurant but I have tried in vain to get one but can not find one. Does anyone know where I can get a good one from?

Posted By Safety110 With regards to him, he has a very successful business with the highest cleanliness. All are trained in Level 2 and that includes the front of house as well. He has a policy but it seems very basic and we are looking for a good 100 plus pages policy not the 10 page one every copies and pasted from the ex-brewery.... I have never came across a good policy for a normal sized restaurant. On speaking with the EOH, they obviously don't hand them out and they really have failed in giving advice to a good policy. The thread may have sounded half hearted but you be assured he is very up to date. Positive feedback only please. Thanks

Posted By Ian Blenkharn Catering is a high risk business. Food borne illness is always very unpleasant and in extremis can be life-threatening. The attack rate can be particularly high, even in so-called well-run businesses. Now take a chemical company, building contractor or engineering firm. They have a high possibility for occurence of an accident (illness), it may be particularly severe awith a risk of death, and many individuals might be affected. The same company now wants to buy an off-the shelf safety policy. They have had basic training, all of them, but want something in writing. Somebody else's documentation, though they are prepared to pay for it. It's a step in the right direction, but only just. Without the advanced training and practical input it's just a piece of paper and isn't going to lessen the risks. Such a scenario would not be acceptable in any field, though you propose that for food hygiene it might be OK. After more than 30 years in the field (as a medical microbiologist) I disagree. You may want only positive feedback. But if you approach the procurement of a safety policy as little more than a token addition to look and sound good, and reject the additional training and education, experience, management control and planning, and audit etc that must go hand-in-hand with it, then you are placing customers at risk. Flipping burgers or fine dining, you don't become experienced in food hygiene simply by buying a policy, even if you read it!

Posted By Safety110 Yes, I fully agree with the training and there is a plan in place for all these items including himself being trained to take the roll on. I am looking for a Consultant that can come in and write a policy. I ask again, does anyone know of how to get an above average Food Hygiene Policy as the local EHO did not give the best advice. Thanks.

Posted By D H 100 page plus policy? I could supply one free of charge, but my time to write the rubbish to make 100 pages plus will cost you. Who will read a statement running to 100 pages plus - or is this a wind up?? Dave

Posted By Sharon Safety110, Carry out a search on Google for "Food Hygiene Consultants" These will help you.

Posted By Lisa_ I fully concur with Brian. My background is food safety - i then got drawn further into the dark side. The policy that my company has is ridiculously long - my suggestion that the best way to progress it was to burn it was not met with a cheer as they had paid a "consultant" lots of money to write it. The guy had obviously never stepped foot in a kitchen in his life. We are moving back to safer food better business - it is easy to understand, easy to implement and complies with all the requirements.

Posted By SJA Gabe In defence of Ian, I think the 'real' problem here is that we have an Independent Health and Safety Consultant providing services to a client of his, in an area of which he clearly has no understanding or in depth knowledge of. This is a specialist area requiring specialist knowledge, though unfortunately his client is unlikely to appreciate this guy's lack of knowledge until something goes wrong, but which time it is too late and the restaurant's customers may also have suffered severe illness as a result. If Safety110 had asked where he could purchase a policy and procedures for managing safety at a nuclear installation, would you still be so forgiving?

Posted By Ian Blenkharn Sadly the regulation of catering premises and catering practice falls well behind the safety regulation in other comercial sectors. In fact, given planning consent, or a burger van, just about anybody can open up and start trading, with little of no experience in food hygiene. Taking instruction and obtaining specialist advice in training and policy development are steps in the right direction and should be applauded. Inevitably though, there are many instances where the training etc comes after the event rather than before. To make it simple for those who wish to see this differently, consider an electriction, scaffolder, ..... or so many other trades. Now consider that they want to trade freely without and without training. And consider also that adverse events occur in catering far far more frequently than with scaffolding, including serious incidents affecting large numbers of individuals, and fatalities. We might enjoy a burger now and then, but it is not in any sense a 'soft' H&S field. Now consider that a H&S 'friend' wants to know where to buy 100 pages of policy for them. Not a bad idea perhaps. It will sit on a shelf somewhere. It might even look good but it won't really make much of a difference. No training. Policy developed in isolation from practice is largely ideology and without the technical training and understanding that must go hand in hand with it is of almost no value. Every H&S professional should know that. For those building and engineering trades that I use as example, few would doubt the imprortance of a comprehensive training programme and the lack of any value that might be added in its stead by the procurement of a an off-the-shelf policy document. That document is not a cure-all, and nobody with a competence in H&S should consider it so. Some may see this differently, and with them I will continue to disagree. Perhaps so would a professional standards committee who might be asked to consider the approach of buying in a safty policy, bigger the better, as an alternative to a properly constructed and suitably tailored policy developed in parallel with audit and inspection, training and education, and the necessary on-going follow-up that ensures the policy document is actually lifted off the shelf now and again as a 'live' document.

Posted By Ian Blenkharn Trevor I have no problem with the sympathetic approach - give the guy a hand and all that - but your email address identifies you as "Catering Consultants, Health and Safety Consultants, Food Hygiene and Health and Safety Training" Your web site focusses on training. Would #you# sell someone a ready made policy document? 100 pages to download and print as required? You seem to suggest that if such is availible then perhaps its OK. There may be some profit in it but professionally it falls down very badly. As much as I would criticise those who seek such an approach to catering safety, so do I criticise those prepared to support caterers operating without the necessary knowledge and training etc, and only later sell them some of the key documentation that is, in isolation, of only minimal value. What worries me is that food preparation [mainly] in the retail sector can permit operation without adequate training. Some seem to think this is acceptable. Even worse, some are tempted to support it. Perhaps because we all cook at home, we think we can do it in the commercial sector. Public health statistics prove otherwise.

Posted By D. Hilton Well spotted CW.

Posted By Decimomal safety 110 /HSES (or whoever you are today). Interesting that your website refers to Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Act. When did it change from being an 'Order' to an Act? Tut Tut.