01/12/2023
Food businesses will be familiar with inspection by the local authority Environmental health department and may wonder why they would want extra inspections on top of this!?
First, it is useful to determine the purpose of inspection. At its most basic, inspection allows an evaluation of your business and its processes. For example, comparison of what the paperwork claims, with observed practices on site.
Compliance is usually the scope of an EHO/EHP inspection; ultimately, they are interested in how well you are complying with the law, which incidentally is a minimum standard to be achieved.
However, inspection is a very useful tool for food businesses; for instance, they can detect legal issues with approaches to risk that could create problems for the business as well as potentially identifying time and cost saving measures.
Of course, inspections can be focused on particular items such as cleaning or staff knowledge and this can help in maintaining and improving standards in specific areas as well as going towards building a good history that can limit or negate complaints, enforcement and/or civil action.
Actively and visibly managing food hygiene within your business can also make a good impression upon customers and increase the likelihood of your premises as the place they choose to buy from.
These are just some of the reasons why inspection of your business is vital.
We offer a range of inspection services to business including our ‘business check-up’ for food hygiene that provides a ‘snap-shot’ of your business under operating conditions and includes a written report. These can be booked as a stand-alone visit or as part of a package. Contact us today for more details.
Assessing your performance is an essential part of health & safety and food hygiene management and can help you identify matters for concern as well as opportunities.
