14.1 Introduction
The UK government wants to make sure that any business that handles food is operating in a manner that is safe for both employees and the public it serves.
To make sure that this is the case, your restaurant will undoubtedly be inspected by someone from your local council.
The goal of a restaurant inspection is not to test or trick managers. The government does not inspect restaurants to try to shut down restaurants. The role of the inspector is only to make sure that the restaurant is a safe place to eat and work.
Since it is in your best interest to keep customers safe, you will want to make sure that you are operating in accordance with regulations regarding employee health and safety and food hygiene and safety.
As long as you are running a registered business that uses hygienic processes and safe food practices, you should have nothing to worry about when facing restaurant inspections.
You can take any suggestions that inspectors make as a way to improve the dining experience for your customers.
14.2 Different Inspections
If your restaurant is legally registered and licensed with the local council, you will usually see three different types of inspections at your restaurant.
Food Inspections
An inspector from the local council will visit you to inspect the food that you buy and serve. They will be looking to ensure that your food is safe and that it is prepared hygienically. The food inspector may look through your stock and look directly at your food. If they find something that needs further examination or documentation, they might take pictures of the food or even take samples away with them. If they think that a food product is suspect, they may relieve you of that product.
A food inspection will not require an inspector to actually eat the food. They will not come into your restaurant and demand to be served food. If this happens, you should ask for identification and call your local council to ensure that the inspection is taking place with their knowledge.
Health and Safety Inspections
Like any business, you will be inspected to ensure that your premises is a safe place to work. To better prepare for a health and safety inspection, you should carry out a risk assessment on the business. This assessment should identify possible hazards both in and around your building. The purpose is to mitigate and prevent risks that might arise when your business is in operation.
A risk assessment does not need to be long or complicated. Legally, it just needs to be suitable for your business type. All you need to do is create a list of potential hazards or risks. This might include fire risk, natural risks or risks associated with equipment or food.
Then, you identify the assets that might be at risk. The most common things at risk are your buildings, employees, customers, reputation or the environment.
Finally, you consider the potential losses against the company's assets. For example, if you have a dishwasher with a door that sticks, it could result in a kitchen porter becoming injured. If a person is injured at work, you face the risk of a lawsuit.
Another example is using an old piece of equipment like a freezer. If the freezer shuts down or malfunctions without someone realising it, your customers could get sick from eating food that was not stored at the correct temperature. The result could be a loss of reputation or even a potential lawsuit.
Record Inspections
Checking out food hygiene, health and safety in a restaurant sounds like a straightforward process. However, there are some things that will be inspected that you may not consider immediately. For many managers or landlords, this includes your record keeping.
Keeping comprehensive and accurate records is a part of running any business in a lawful manner. You are legally obligated to do this both for safety and for tax purposes. Food inspectors will not be too interested in your financial records. However, they will be interested in the records you take that deal with your stock. You should have detailed records for both stock control and storage.
You need these because you will need to provide evidence to inspectors that you rotate your stock in a safe manner. Stock rotation is essential because it ensures that you are not serving expired or dangerous products to customers.
These records should also contain evidence of proper storage. For example, you will need to take regular readings of the temperatures in your both your refrigerators and your freezers to make sure that they are functioning properly. This is an important part of food safety and hygiene and if an inspector finds that your equipment is not reaching suitable temperatures for safe food storage, you will be asked to repair them.
14.3 The Inspection Process
As a business that deals with distributing food to the public, you are required to follow the laws regarding food safety in the UK.
To make sure that businesses are living up to these standards, the UK gives the local council power to dispatch an inspector to inspect you. The inspection has several purposes.
First and foremost, the inspection is taking place to ensure that the food you sell or serve is safe to eat. The UK wants to ensure that your food and the restaurant's hygiene are not endangering the customers in anyway.
Second, the government wants to make sure that you are not misleading customers. If you are advertising food on a menu, the food that is delivered to customers must match this description. This may mean that you need to ensure that you are labelling allergens correctly. It also means that you cannot offer beef mince, but actually be selling horse mince. Your customers might not have noticed but operating in this manner is unlawful. It is not, however, a test of how palatable your food is.
Third, the inspector may be visiting your business because they have received a complaint. If the council has seen complaints about your restaurant, they are obligated to visit you to ensure that you are operating safely. However, the frequency of the visits will often depend on your previous record, the type of business you run and the level of transparency that you have in your relationship with the council.
Finally, these inspectors report to food hygiene rating schemes. As a restaurant, you may be under observation by or listed with the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. This means that you will be assigned a number according to the standards of hygiene at your business. The scheme will send you a certificate or a sticker after you have been inspected and awarded a number. Some restaurants choose to display this certificate in the window or somewhere in the restaurant where customers, employees or inspectors can view it if requested.
When You Will Be Inspected
As a restaurant, you will be inspected by the local council. This can happen at any time and in most cases, you will not be made aware of the date or time of the inspection. However, you will be inspected at least once within your first year of opening.
The frequency of inspections depends on your restaurant type. If your restaurant is a member of an assurance scheme that is recognised by the government, you are not necessarily as likely to be inspected as often as other restaurants.
It may feel counter-intuitive at first but it is a good idea to request that your restaurant is inspected, especially if your restaurant or facility is just opening. This is a good way to build a positive relationship with the local council and with the environmental health office. It also allows you to ensure that everything is up to code before you open which can save you a lot of time and money in
the future.
What They Will Inspect
Every inspector that turns up on your doorstep must follow the Food Law Code of Practice. This code was developed by the UK government and it is available for anyone to view online on the UK government's website.
When you are visited by an inspector, they have the authority to inspect your premises, records, procedures and your food. The inspector is permitted to take food samples. The inspector can choose to photograph food samples as well. All of this is to ensure that you are operating within UK food safety laws.
After Your Inspection
The inspector will go away and write up a report for your restaurant. The outcome of the report will be sent to you through the post so that you can have it in writing. The report will detail any of the changes that you need to make and when these changes need to be made by. You will need to confirm with the inspector or the council that these changes have been made.
Not all of these changes are required by law. If a change that an inspector has suggested is required by law, they are required to make this clear in their correspondence. If a change is only in the interest of good practice, they must make this clear also.
If the inspector notes more substantial issues at the restaurant, they will send you a notice. This notice can prevent you from using certain processes or certain pieces of equipment until you have
demonstrated that you have made the improvements listed in the notice. If the issues were large enough that you were sent a notice, you will often receive a second notice so that the improvements can be confirmed.
If you have been served a notice from the inspector, you must comply with it. Non-compliance with these notices is a criminal offence in the UK. The council can choose to prosecute the business in serious cases.
If you do not agree with the decision of an inspector, you are allowed to appeal. The letter that you are sent by the inspector will detail the process by which you can appeal the decision of the inspector.
14.4 Food Safety in the UK
To prepare or sell food, you do not legally have to have a food hygiene certificate. However, people often prefer that those who handle food have received some type of food hygiene training and completed a food hygiene certificate. This training can be done on-the-job or it can be done through self-study. For self-study options, there are no entry requirements for the course and it is available to anyone who is about to begin working in an environment where they will handle food. These courses often only take a few hours to complete.
These certificates do not have an expiry date and thus, do not need to be renewed regularly. How often refresher courses are used is directly up to you as the manager of the restaurant. However, proper training should be given whenever a procedure has changed in the restaurant. If new equipment is installed or processes changed, it is imperative to train employees on these so that the transition can happen smoothly and without incident.
Food safety certification courses are important if not for the practical knowledge that they instil but for teaching employees about why food safety and hygiene is important. It also ensures that
employees are made aware of responsibilities both personally and legally. They also learn about the impact that poor hygiene practices can have on the customers and the business, including issues surrounding food contamination and food borne illnesses.
Local authorities will often provide these courses. Additionally, colleges, local libraries or food safety bodies also award these certificates. A certification training course can also be completed online with the FSA.
The food safety course should include several food safety practices including:
Understanding food laws
Effective hand washing and personal hygiene
How to preserve food
Ensuring that food is cooked correctly
Cleaning the area or equipment correctly and keeping the kitchen hygienic
Dealing with illness at work
Dealing with potential pests
Encouraging employees to go through some sort of food safety process is a good idea for every restaurant. Food inspectors will be interested in how your employees work and the procedures they use in the kitchen. For example, if an inspector visits and notices an employee handling raw meat and then immediately handling other foods with the same tools and without washing their hands, this can reflect badly on your report. It is also unsafe.
FACT
In 2018/19 a total of 24,164 establishments in the UK were subject to formal enforcement actions
(Hygiene Improvement Notices)
Source: food.gov.uk
Module Summary
The restaurant inspection process is not something to be feared, and if you keep your kitchen and food in a hygienic state all of the time, you will not need to worry about the inspection at all.
It is important to remember that food safety certifications and food inspections are not about pleasing the government, the council or the inspector. They are also not about proving that your food tastes as good as you promise it does. An inspector does not come into your restaurant to try to trick you into making mistakes.
Council-led inspections are about making sure that your customers and employees stay safe while they are on your premises. They do this by following a strict set of guidelines that allows them to objectively measure the health, safety and hygiene of your restaurant.
As a restaurant manager, you are responsible for the experience of everyone that enters the building. Thus, you want to be sure that everyone that walks into your restaurant walks out again happy and healthy.
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