Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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VM
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health and hygiene rulesInterested to see an old discussion on problems with using your kitchen at home for a food business. My partner sells food to friends sometimes - ready meals (nice ones!) and we have catered for parties - and he's thinking about doing more of it and in a more business-like way. Are people basically saying that it is too difficult to make a small home kitchen comply with health and hygiene legislation? And would this apply to this kind of catering?
any views/experience/information gratefully received
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Rob R
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Not had any direct experience but I would reckon it would be easier, and ultimately cheaper, to invest in a seperate kitchen if you were considering making a business of it.
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RichardW
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membership of the local WI (country market) exempts you from registering with the eho. But that might only be for goods produced for the WI but the regs are not clear on that. You should be able to comply with regs easily with a few managment changes to how you lay it out & work. Pets tend to be the biggest problem.
Justme
PS see if the 5 day rule (you can use presises for 5 days in any ro,ing 5 week period & not regsiter) applies to you if it is still avaliable.
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gil
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I'll let you know after the EHO have been round on Tuesday !
But the impression I have up here is that they are relatively sensible and sensitive to context. I am not expected to run my kitchen like an industrial unit, nor to rip it out and fit a new one.
Also depends on what you are making - they are more strict if it involves meat and dairy etc.
If one of you can get a Food Hygiene certificate, that will help - some councils / etc run courses for free or you can access your Individual Learning Account (ILA) to fund the cost.
Get a book out of the library on Food Hygiene etc., and look at stuff about HACCP analysis and plans. At some point when I've sorted mountains of paper and found it, I'll post the reference for the useful book I read.
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Nick
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If you wish to do professional catering from home, that's fine. You'll need EHO checks, and the only thing I seem to remember them insisting on is a separate hand washing sink.
If you've got pets, they have to be excludable. But, talk to Trading standards, and the EHO, they will help.
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mochyn
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| Nick wrote: | | But, talk to Trading standards, and the EHO, they will help. |
I think that's crucial to the whole thing. Get them 'on side' and they should be able to give loads of advice. You'll need a food hygiene qualification, so if you get that first, or at least get booked onto a course before you speak to them it shows wiliing. And it's dead easy.
Good luck!
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Nick
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| mochyn wrote: | | Nick wrote: | | But, talk to Trading standards, and the EHO, they will help. |
I think that's crucial to the whole thing. Get them 'on side' and they should be able to give loads of advice. You'll need a food hygiene qualification, so if you get that first, or at least get booked onto a course before you speak to them it shows wiliing. And it's dead easy.
Good luck! |
And free at many places, or very cheap at worst.
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mochyn
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Not free here, Nick.  About £60.
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Nick
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Well, then at least they're very cheap.
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dougal
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| Nick wrote: | If you wish to do professional catering from home, that's fine. You'll need EHO checks, and the only thing I seem to remember them insisting on is a separate hand washing sink.
... talk to Trading standards, and the EHO, they will help. |
If you are selling food, the first hurdle you are likely to encounter is the need to *register* your "food premises".
There is an exemption from registration if the "food premises" are only used as such for less than 5 days in any 5 weeks. However, any storage of food for sale counts as 'use as food premises' so this is is less of an exemption than you might think.
Registration opens the way to inspection...
As Nick suggests, talk to the relevant people, ask for their help in discovering the legal requirements that they must enforce, and practical methods of satisfying their requirements.
Environmental Health will be concerned about having (loo) handwashing facilities distinct from food washing, and suchlike.
Trading Standards will tell you what labelling requirements apply, for example.
Don't forget to keep a careful record of the costs you incur. Strictly speaking, you are liable to Income Tax on any income from business or trade. But by 'income' that means *profit* - so you need to be able to show what your costs have been. But don't get carried away with this - its usually a bad idea to claim that any identifiable part of your home is used exclusively for business - because then you'll end up with a Capital Gains Tax liability...
It might also be a good thing just to check that there aren't any covenants relating to the (residential) property not being used for business purposes.
While there might seem to be a lot of bureaucracy, you really want to try and get the bureaucrats "on-side" as far as ever possible -- they can be very formal indeed if they somehow get the idea that you are trying to "get away with things".
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gil
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EHO cancelled yesterday at the last minute. Just waiting for them to turn up now....
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mochyn
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| gil wrote: | | EHO cancelled yesterday at the last minute. Just waiting for them to turn up now.... |
What a pain, Gil. Hope you manage to keep everything clean overnight...
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gil
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| mochyn wrote: | | gil wrote: | | EHO cancelled yesterday at the last minute. Just waiting for them to turn up now.... |
What a pain, Gil. Hope you manage to keep everything clean overnight... |
here they come now. yeh, had to do wine work yesterday and clean up after again
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mochyn
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Pob lwc!
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gil
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EHO been and gone away happy. Couple of tiny points, so as to tie in the production records more closely with the HACCP plan/analysis
1. tick box to confirm that bottles visually inspected before filling
2. exception report to be made if fermentation chamber temperature goes outside tolerances defined by me as critical (QA issue rather than food hygiene/safety)
Otherwise fine. Follow-up visit in 6 months.
He also took sample labels to confirm legality of labelling - have discussed this before with him by phone, and I know they conform to legal requirements.
The kitchen was very clean, but this did not seem to be the main issue - probably would have been if it had been dirty though.
The useful book is
Johns, N. (1995), Managing Food Hygiene (2nd edition), Macmillan Press Ltd. : Basingstoke
So it was a result ! 
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sean
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Yayy for you gil.
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dougal
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Excellent, if confidently expected, news!
Now, Sean is probably being hesitant in pressing for the Downsizer article on this subject... 
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gil
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Couple of points came up as ringing bells for EH at the moment / in a rural context, which might be useful for all food businesses to bear in mind :
1. Labelling legislation changes - you now need to state on your labels anything on the EH's list of allergens (nuts, celery, mustard, sulphites, etc etc) that is an ingredient in your product.
I had already sent them a list of ingredients, and discussed with them, and designed labels accordingly.
2. Are you on mains water and drainage ?
Are your production waste emissions likely to overburden your existing septic tank, or affect bacterial activity within it ? we discussed whether putting sulphited disinfection water down the drain was likely to prevent natural decomposition, and concluded not.
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Rob R
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| gil wrote: | 2. Are you on mains water and drainage ?
Are your production waste emissions likely to overburden your existing septic tank, or affect bacterial activity within it ? we discussed whether putting sulphited disinfection water down the drain was likely to prevent natural decomposition, and concluded not. |
That's a good point, we specifically engineered the drainage system way over spec to account for this, but most farms/houses will be operating on domestic systems...
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mochyn
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Good for you, Gil.
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RichardW
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| gil wrote: |
Otherwise fine. Follow-up visit in 6 months.
He also took sample labels to confirm legality of labelling - have discussed this before with him by phone, and I know they conform to legal requirements.
So it was a result ! |
Well done on the good result.
You sure he / she was happy? Normal visits are yearly for the first couple of years then haphazard after that if alls OK. Was this your first ever visit? Might explain the 6 month repeat. Cant understand why EHO took labels as thats the trading Standards responsibility. Not that we have ever got them to respond to any thing we have asked them. But bet they come down on us like a ton of bricks if we get it wrong.
We get asked every visit if we are on mains water. But they seem happy that we are on a septic tank. In fact it seemed to shut him up as we are not contaminating the mains drain. Luckily most of what goes down ours is biological (blood meat ect) so the tank loves it (I guess).
The one thing that he tends to go on about is check charts with cross referencing. he wants the worker to enter a recording, then the line manager to check every so many then the owner to check so many of them. He still cant get his head round that as I would be doing the first entry & I am the line manager & owner then the one tick is in fact 3.
Justme
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gil
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| Justme wrote: | | Was this your first ever visit? Might explain the 6 month repeat. |
Yes, it was the first. And he was very happy. Apparently in D&G, the next one would be in three years time, or even longer if things are OK, so hence the 6 months (and then not for ages), just to check that the (food safety) tick box and (quality-related) exception reporting has been implemented.
Also, I suspect, to give the less experienced staff something to do, at a business that has basically passed on a first inspection, and is deemed to be low-risk.
| Justme wrote: | | Cant understand why EHO took labels as thats the trading Standards responsibility. Not that we have ever got them to respond to any thing we have asked them. |
Up here in Scotland (dunno about England and Wales), EHO, and Trading Standards have recently been amalgamated to form a new unified agency : 'Environmental Standards'. It is, apparently, an unhappy marriage so far.
I think EH have an interest in what is on labels now because of the allergenic ingredients issue (food safety from the consumer's viewpoint). However, the EHO today was also the TS chap I've previously dealt with about the legal requirements for labelling. EH and TS (legal) don't seem to speak to TS (Weights and Measures). I've already had a visit from a different W&M bloke, whose remit also covers selling by mail order and internet.
Confused yet ? 
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RichardW
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Ah that explains it then.
Er clear as mud I think. Sounds like Scotland to me. One of my freinds has trouble with the movments people as he has inspections from 3 diff departments for differing things & each wants it doing in a sepperate way so he ends up doing it in triplicate.
Justme
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VM
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Only just managed to get back and look at this post of mine and all the replies. Thank you very much for all the information so far. At least we do have stable doors to keep our dogs out of the kitchen - sounds like that might come in useful! We'll contact relevant people and see how it goes.
thanks again - all interesting and useful
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