A report
published by the Food Standards Agency states that 50% of
catering establishments (from restaurants to burger vans)
inspected last year broke the most basic hygiene rules.
The FSA are starting a campaign about basic food hygiene
in the hope of avoiding up to 4.5 million cases of food
poisoning estimated to have occured last year.
There
is no national strategy for inspection and prosecution of
establishments that break these rules. Some councils will
regard food safety as a low priority, others as a high priority.
And some may be more lenient than others on prosecuting
persistent offenders.
In
conjunction with the Consumers Association, the FSA has
been discussing the issue of licencing restaurants or indeed
providing hygeine ratings, allowing consumers to be aware
of the standards available. Complementary to this would
be the introduction of mandatory basic hygeine training
for catering establishments, similar to a scheme that has
been implemented for butchers.
Comment:
The worrying thing here is that one assumed that breaking
hygeine laws resulted in a prosecution. Obviously, as this
is essentially regulated at a local level, it depends on
the priority given by the council.
