Don’t ignore the rules!
Experienced food hygiene training course providers like the popular Food Alert in London offer training and every day compliance diaries so that control within the kitchen environment is monitored. Training can transform the unknowing to the learned and secure a better reputation and standards for an establishment in a cost effective and timely manner.
The legislation and rulebook can be subject to change, training companies actively update their course content as appropriate. It’s not credible for them to train you with out of date legislation so if they tell you that the Food Standards Agency brought in a new measure three weeks before training that means, no matter what you may already think you know, that the directive must be followed.
Refresher food hygiene training courses are just not a preference they should be integral within your staff management and training programmes. Processes change and being sued because you failed to notice an alteration in a ten-year-old law won’t provide adequate defence for risking customer or staff safety.
Brexit will impact on the food and catering industry so frequent refresher data is required and that means you must take food hygiene training courses to be able to show an inspector that you are maintaining and improving knowledge, not just for yourself but for your staff.
The British Hospitality Association has published a catering guide for food hygiene practices; this is recognised by the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland and is easily purchasable.
The 2016 edition is out now and it informs about legislative changes in the U.K. and Europe, of course until Brexit is initiated we are still bound by these wider laws. It details food hygiene best practices within any catering establishment from a café to a pub to a restaurant to a mobile fast food van.
A book! This sounds like an excellent and inexpensive cheat, doesn’t it? Training costs a little more and this is the official rulebook used by inspectors so just a quick flick through should be enough to prove you’re trying to stay up to date. Yes and no.
You may get 10/10 for effort and at least by reading the guide you might accrue some knowledge but if the data within the book has been superseded after publication how will you know?
Moreover, the previous guide was not updated for 20 years so the old version will certainly be less than helpful and you could employ the same view about the 2016 book, even in 2018.
You also need to utilise the correct food hygiene practices at all times and stating that you read the 2016 guide during a 2017 inspection of a dirty, cross contaminated food preparation area won’t earn you any praise.
In that way, a food hygiene training course that offers compliance assessments and guidance, like the ones at Food Alert, can truly make a difference.
Never underestimate the value of knowledge gained through current food hygiene training courses.