Planning a kitchen

Safety comes first when setting up any sort of catering operation. Find out how licensees should adhere to the food safety laws when planning a pub kitchen.

If you think kitchen planning is a simple matter of locating cooking equipment in the most aesthetically pleasing place in the kitchen, think again.

Setting up a food business of any sort these days requires a great deal of planning if you do not want to fall foul of stringent food safety legislation which, if not adhered to, can result in prosecution and, in the most severe of cases, the closure of your business.

The question is where to begin? It is probably best to make contact with your local Environmental Health Officer (EHO) who can provide plenty of guidance as to the requirements of the law and what you will need to do to comply with all the rules and regulations which now apply under the Food Safety Act.

Do not regard the EHO as your enemy. While the Health Inspector episode of Fawlty Towers was funny, it is certainly not the norm. As Pauline Kirby, an EHO working as a commercial premises manager for the London Borough of Sutton, points out: "We're not here to catch people out, it is not in our interests. We want caterers to serve safe food, so it is unfortunate if we're seen in a negative light. We are not the enemy."

According to Pauline, it is advisable for caterers to approach their local EHO prior to obtaining planning permission (if it is required) for their new kitchen. The planning departments of all local councils will notify their Environmental Health Department who will then send the caterer a standard letter outlining what they need to consider. "It is better for us to get it right in the first place rather than have to put it right at a later date," explained Pauline.

The key to planning any kitchen is working out a "throughput", a workable system which separates the main elements of the kitchen - raw materials, food preparation, cooking, storage and, of course, what to do with all the waste material, dirty plates and cutlery.

In essence, the aim is to avoid what is known as cross-contamination which is the result of allowing raw ingredients to come into contact with cooked food. Cross-contamination can result in food poisoning and food poisoning can lead to prosecution under the Food Safety Act.

Caterers must register with their local Environmental Health Department prior to trading and someone, preferably two people in a small business, need to undergo basic hygiene training. Courses are available from local technical colleges and, as is the case at the London Borough of Sutton, the council provides courses too. If English as a first language is a problem then there are plenty of courses conducted in other tongues. In other words, there is no excuse and basic hygiene training is now a legal requirement.

Pauline argues that a minimum of two people holding a basic hygiene training certificate is important for small businesses because one person alone cannot be expected to remain on the premises all day to provide guidance to those who have not received formal training. The legal requirement is for only one person to be formally trained.

It is now a legal requirement to conduct what is known as a HACCPS inspection of your food operation. HACCPS stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points System which, in laymens' terms, means looking at your food operation and working out what could go wrong in terms of food safety risks to the public and then pulling out all the stops to prevent them occurring. In other words, prevention is better than cure.

Documentation​

While it is a legal requirement to conduct a HACCPS analysis, caterers are not required by law to write down the end results of their HACCPS. Pauline advises all caterers to produce a HACCPS document so that all those involved in the kitchen can refer to the documentation as and when is necessary.

Larger catering businesses, including all the big pub retailers, do have a proper written system which outlines which checks need to be made and when, but because it is not a legal requirement, EHOs like Pauline cannot enforce it.

For a lot of caterers, the term HACCPS is confusing. In a nutshell it is simply an inspection of the entire operation from goods in to goods out and all the inherent risks encountered en route. The idea is that if you know where the potential risks lie you can go some way to preventing any problems arising. If you are a little concerned about HACCPS, call your local Environmental Health Officer for some free help and guidance.

As you plough through the process of kitchen planning, one phrase you will most definitely encounter is "due diligence". Due diligence is what lies behind the concept of hazard analysis. We are living in an increasingly litigious environment where people will sue at the drop of a hat. Food poisoning, understandably, is infested with the possibilities of legal actions either from individuals or from your local health department as a result of, say, a food poisoning outbreak which has been traced to your premises and which might be the result of your negligence.

And there's the rub. If you can prove that you took all reasonable precautions to prevent a food poisoning outbreak, and can back up your argument with documentation, ie, your HACCPS system (now do you see how important it is to write things down?) then it could make all the difference between a business-threatening prosecution or staying in business.

So what do you need to know about rules and regulations? In short, the Food Safety Act and its more recent revisions, the Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995 and the Food Safety (Temperature Control) Regulations 1995. In essence, the former highlights the need for your premises to be well constructed and for your kitchen to be easy to clean and maintain. It highlights the need for you to undertake a HACCPS analysis, provide sufficient sinks, hot and cold water and suitably sited wash hand basins and, of course, stay off work - or steer clear of food handling - if you have contracted any form of gastro-intestinal infection.

The temperature control regulations of the same year tell you to store high risk foods, that's raw foodstuffs like meat, fish and poultry, at temperatures no higher than 8 deg C and that hot food not being served immediately must be held prior to serving at higher than 63 deg C. The high-risk temperature range between 8 deg C and 63 deg C is when bacterial growth is most likely. Indeed, unless you are cooking and serving food immediately, the best policy is to be able to chill it down to 8 deg C or below as quickly as possible.

At this stage, you are probably wondering what all the fuss is about. Well, the truth is that , on average, there around 100,000 reported food poisoning cases every year in England and Wales. Why? According to Pauline more people eat out today than ever before, there is, of course, more reporting of food poisoning incidents and people are more likely to visit their doctor if they suspect they have been poisoned.

Evidence​

EHOs like Pauline receive a lot of their cases via local GPs and it is then up to the EHO to take matters further. Despite all the horror stories about businesses closing down following prosecution under the Food Safety Act, it is very difficult to secure a prosecution, according to Pauline.

Collecting the evidence is crucial if a food poisoning case against a caterer is going to stand up in court, and EHOs need to procure food samples from the offending premises - and very often the "evidence" has been eaten! They have to conduct lab tests on human faeces as well as all the usual on-site inspections and even then the whole thing might be a virus and not food poisoning after all.

"Close-downs are rare as most premises are not that bad, but if, on inspection, the caterer displays a blatant disregard for food safety then they will