All Posts Tagged: Food poisoning

Food Safety during the Olympics

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Richard Mallett

With the Olympics just around the corner the Food Standards Agency have launched a campaign and some useful sources of information about their role and the role of caterers to ensure food safety.

The link can be found here.

We think that this is an opportunity to promote the value of the independent food hygiene audit to any individual or company who will be preparing and serving food, in any capacity.

Benefits of the food hygiene (food safety) audit

  1. Expert assessment of your controls and premises against the European Food Hygiene Regulations and the Food Hygiene Regulations 2006 – these are the same pieces of legislation that the local environmental health officers will themselves be using to conduct official inspections.
  2. Clear and unambiguous colour coded hygiene audit reports that are easily understood.
  3. Full and simple debrief of on site staff by our expert auditors.
  4. Easier and better official inspections (by the environmental health officers) – you will already be compliant and protecting your due diligence!
  5. Reduced risk of legal contravention of civil litigation – common outcomes from food poisoning or food borne disease which result from poor food hygiene standards.

Can you afford not to if you are going to be an Olympics caterer? Call us or reply using the Contact Us page of our website to find out more about this affordable and essential service.

A point for debate – product recall

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Richard Mallett

I wonder whether we are just possibly over-reacting to risk in this case?

The recall of Lloyd Grossman sauce has, according to the latest from the FSA, affected only one jar of the entire batch.

The toxin that causes the illness is very easily destroyed by normal cooking and again that can be verified by the a linked article issued by the FSA. Now if we had a water supply problem, which was a microbiological issue, a boil order would most likely be issued. So should we simply issue a warning that the consumer should thoroughly heat the sauce, as they should anyway?!

I’m interested to hear comment.

Botulism outbreak in France

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Richard Mallett

The Food Standards Agency is reporting on an outbreak from pastes contaminated with Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium behind the deadly botulism disease. The product has not been distributed within the UK but caution is exercised if the affected products were purchased by anyone visiting France. Meanwhile in France the products have been withdrawn from market. The bacterium grows well if allowed to contaminate certain meat and fish products that have been processed or packaged to exclude oxygen, which is actually toxic to the organism. It then produces a toxin that, if consumed, can culminate in neural paralysis and lead to death in about 40-50% of cases. For those lucky enough to pull through, the convalescence period can be many months. It is a very unusual outbreak – they are very rare. The cause will certainly be investigated by the French authorities. Such contamination is normally caused by a breakdown of a HACCP food safety management system, or failure to review such a system when changes are made to the processing operation. If this is found to be the case then it points again to the importance of an audited, reviewed and validated HACCP plan, a procedure which is mandatory not only under food hygiene legislation but also for the common global food safety standards such as BRC, IFS and ISO 22000. Read about the outbreak here - http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2011/sep/botulism

Stomach Upsets

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Richard Mallett

The results of some very interesting research has just been released by the Food Standards Agency. The study looked at the impact of all cases of Infectious Intestinal Disease (IID), both linked to and not linked to food. It found that there are 17 million cases of IID (approximately 1/4 of the population) and that as a result there are 11 million working days lost. For every reported case there are no less than 147 unreported ones.

The majority of cases were caused by Norovirus and Camplyobacter – both agents that have a low infective dose (about 100 virus particles or bacterial cells are thought to be sufficient for infection) and are commonly spread through cross contamination This supports very well the priorities of the Food Standard Agency’s Foodborne Disease Strategy for 2010-2015 (an earlier post and summarised well here http://www.haccpeurope.com/documents/haccpinterissue3.pdf)

The Food Standards Agency commented that “This study has confirmed that the burden of IID is substantial in the UK. However, a large proportion of the illnesses reported can be prevented by adopting good basic hygiene. The FSA’s advice on preparation and handling of food will help to minimise the risk from bacteria and viruses linked to food.”

For advice on food hygiene audits to verify good food safety and hygiene procedures please do call us now.

RSS FeedRecent Blog Articles

» See More Articles…

    Tag Cloud