Keeping it clean

Stuart Knill

I tend to start with an audit of facilities and ensure there are the staff and the equipment to service the proposed menu. A meeting with the local EHO, who generally knows the history of the premises, is also crucial. In my experience, local authorities are helpful and many adopt award schemes to encourage licensees. Never ignore EHOs or give false promises.

Spend time studying the Safer Food Better Business pack, available from EHOs, which contains a lot of information to help with training, safety and hygiene issues.

Health and safety is crucial to any commercial kitchen. At the very least, regulation breaches can cause you major problems; at worst, they could see your operation closed down.

A health and safety policy, backed by staff training, is worth its weight in gold and acts as insurance if things do go wrong. There are countless regulations that governmental bodies can use, but talking to them will help you identify the most crucial areas you need to concentrate on initially.

Health and safety regulations can be complicated, but whatever systems you adopt, they have to be maintained, user-friendly and backed by the management team. Ignore new laws at your peril. Keep up-to-date with new legislation because it is being introduced all the time.

There are consultants out there who can offer off-the-shelf packages, but these can be very generic. Every premises is different and although it's possible to adopt a global approach, I find, that the personal touch is best.

For more information contact Stuart Knill on 07900 185685.

Stuart's tips

l Cultivate a friendly but professional relationship with your local EHO and work with him at all times - never be afraid to ask his advice.

l Constantly monitor your operations and ensure your staff know exactly what is expected of them. Keep all your food safety records for up to six months.

l Teach your staff to work on their own initiative in terms of everyday disciplines, so they know exactly what to do at the start of a shift without having to be told.

Jenny morris

First, you must establish that the available facilities are viable in terms of food safety. You can then decide what you can safely prepare. Some people decide what they want to make and then try and work the offer around an inadequate kitchen.

The FSA highlights four "Cs": cooking, chilling, cleaning and cross-contamination. If you try to cook too much food without enough ovens, you end up trying to keep food warm while you wait for everything to get ready - which has obvious dangers - or else you don't give the food enough time to cook through.

The absence of the necessary refrigeration can compromise safety. I've seen pubs using cellars to store food. Cellars may be temperature controlled to keep beer cool, but this may be inadequate for food, and you could have a problem with contamination from the yeast spores floating around.

A domestic fridge is not designed for a pub kitchen. If it's stuffed full, air will not circulate and the food will not be chilled adequately. To get around space restrictions, chefs will pre-cook and re-heat. To do this, you need to make sure that food is chilled as quickly as possible - so you need the right equipment.

The last two Cs can work hand in hand. If you don't clean properly you'll get all sorts of cross-contamination. The key to safe preparation is to separate raw and cooked food. Doing raw meat prep, you've got to ensure that juices can't be transferred.

The feedback about the FSA's Safer Food Better Business has been great. Small businesses often say they don't have the resources to find out what measures must be in place to comply with constantly changing regulations. This guide does that.

jenny's tips

l Think through the four "Cs" and you'll be on the right road to consider all the key issues in food safety.

l Put a system in place to manage food safety - it's now a legal requirement.

l Get support from your local authority EHO and get a copy of the FSA's Safer Food Better Business. It's designed for small operations, contains lots of relevant information, and all the feedback we've had is that it's a practical book and fits in well with normal business practices.

Peter mcCarter

The first thing I would do is contact the local EHO. Invite them to the pub and discuss your plans. Once you have asked them what you need to do to prepare for serving food, act on it - and stick to it.

There's no point in cutting corners because it will cost you in the end. If I am considering making changes at the pub I always contact the EHO and ask what I will need to do to make the changes safe.

At the end of the day, you are dealing with people's lives and a lot of licensees don't realise that the preparation and storage of food are two very important areas to monitor. There are certain foods that cannot be stored together and certain temperatures that food has to be kept at.

This is explained in the Basic Food Hygiene course, which is a mandatory requirement under general food safety regulations. All of my staff have attained their Basic Food Hygiene certificate and it is updated regularly - even the head chef's.

I also have six trained fire-fighters - one for every shift - who know which extinguisher to use for which type of fire. There are six trained first-aiders on every shift as well.

Here at the Ratcatchers, we have pioneered a health and safety computer game and new staff wander around a virtual Ratcatchers, spotting hazards. I find that people often miss safety hazards such as naked flames left alone in the kitchen or gas cylinders being stored near the cooker.

It's a great tool and several of our staff have said it is the most fun way in which they've ever learned.

Peter McCarter has been operating a forward-thinking food safety policy at the Ratcatchers for years.

Peter's tips

l Always communicate with environmental health

officers.

l Let your staff know that if they are ever in doubt, they should ask first.

l Always treat the kitchen as if you're cooking for yourself. If you wouldn't eat food from there - why should anyone

else?

Bring it on

Top tips on how to introduce a food offer at your pub

Janet Perkin

operations manager at business risk management

consultancy Perry Scott Nash Group

Food safety and hygiene, while a matter of legal obligation and moral responsibility, need not be a complicated matter and can be summed up by the use of the "six Ps" implementation system:

l Preventing contamination

l Preventing dirty premises

l Proper temperature controls

l Personal hygiene

l Pest prevention

l Practising proper practices and procedures in cooking and handling of foods.

Dr Lisa Ackerley

environmental health practitioner at food safety

consultancy Hygiene Audit Systems

Train all staff to understand your system - this may not take long, but they need to know how to carry out the controls you need them to do - whether it is cleaning, taking and recording temperatures, or simply personal hygiene. Make a note of all training - even if it is not formal, certificated training, it counts.

Tim Knowles

author of Food Safety In The Hospitality Industry

Any proprietor using a system that achieves specified standards of hygiene and ensures compliance with the relevant legislation can have nothing to fear from a visit by the EHO. This means they can concentrate on the main business of satisfying their customers.

Food Standards Agency (FSA)

The Safer Food Better Business pack has been developed by the Food Standards Agency, working with catering businesses, to be practical and easy to use. Using this pack will help you to:

l Comply with the new regulations

l Prepare food safely

l Train staff

l Protect your business's reputation

l Impro