Does anyone know of any good guidance covering the issue of pupils cooking food (cakes etc) for sale at a school event. I am no authority on food and would be interested in finding out what the regulations say on this issue and what approach should be taken regarding allergies etc. Are disclaimer signs enough? Any help in this area would be welcome. I have tried the FSA website but there is little information there. Thanks in advance.

Regarding guidance for food safety I suggest you look at publications from Highfield as this is the information I use for my food safety courses I run from the company I work for. Although the type of food you are taking about I assume is low risk (i.e. confectionery type cakes) so very unlikely to cause food poisoning. Therefore general good hygiene standards should be sufficent.

In regard to allergen advice there is no legal requirement at present to provide allergen info for food which is sold either unwrapped, wrapped at location where the product is sold or for products sold in clear wrap cellophane or plastic. However if you wish to place a disclaimer on the stall (over kill in my opinion) it should have the following wording:
Product are made from cereals contain gluten, milk, eggs etc. and may also contain x,y,z.
The "may also contain" is meant to be used to indicate that the product may have been contaminated with the various allergens.

That all said I know from personal experience (my daughter was allergic to milk) I would not consider buying products from a stall as I would not have the confidence in the controls used in the making of the products which I believe is the stand most parents of allergic children would take.

I have seen PH2 comments and likewise I understand the sentiment, however such stalls would still be covered by relevant food safety legislation which obviously if something did go drastically wrong could leave the organisers or school open to prescution by local enforcement authorities.

The basic principles of safe food preparation can be summarised as the ‘4Cs’:

1. clean: wash your hands, surfaces and utensils properly and keep them clean
2. cook: cook food properly
3. chill: chill food properly
4. cross contamination: avoid spreading food poisoning bacteria between foods by cross contamination

There is useful information from University of Warwick’s Health, Safety & Well-being webpages on “Charity Cake Sales” that are relevant and not OTT!
http://www2.warwick.ac.u...dsafety/charitycakesale/

No. Don't do that. "May contain" is nothing but blatant backside-covering and is no use to anyone whatsoever.

If they were prepared at school and you know what was done, say so, and say what has been done to avoid cross-contamination. If you made the fudge at the same time and in the same kitchen as the peanut brittle "Not intended to contain nuts or peanuts, but was prepared alongside items containing peanuts".

If you had no control say so - "Not intended to contain nuts, but prepared by pupils at home."

And that contradicts my statement how, exactly? Is your contention that the BRC (whoever they may be, but conceivably the British Retail Consortium) are such paragons of virtue that they would never, ever do something just to cover their backsides? Do you think that a trade association of retailers might possibly offer advice slanted towards protecting retailers?



A straw man. I didn't propose listing every single step. I gave an example of an appropriate text that would give someone with a life-threatening food allergy (such as myself) the information that would enable them to make a judgement. 'May contain' does not.