Food safety advice for businesses

All food businesses are required to assess the food hazards in their operation to identify steps that are critical to food safety, ie cooking food to kill bacteria. Proprietors must then ensure that controls are put in place to control the risks and monitor them to make sure they are working.

You need to be able to demonstrate that:

• Hazards to food safety that might be present within your business have been identified.
• Controls are in place to deal with these hazards.
• The controls are carried out and checked. If something goes wrong or changes everyone must be clear about what they should do and then do it.
• Procedures are kept up to date.
• Documents are kept to show what the procedures are.
• Records are kept to show that the procedures are working.

The Food Standards Agency have developed the Safer food, better business (SFBB) pack to help small businesses put in place management systems based on the principles of HACCP and comply with food hygiene regulations.

There are a number of SFBB packs available that are designed to meet the specific needs of different food businesses. There are packs for small catering businesses, small retail businesses, and restaurants and takeaways that serve different cuisines, such as Chinese or Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan cuisines. There is also a pack for childminders and a supplement for care homes that is designed to be used with the pack for caterers.