Food Hygiene Law

New EU food hygiene laws applied in the UK from 1 January 2006.

Who has to comply with new EU regulations?

The regulations affect all food businesses in the private and public sector and whether profit or non-profit making. A food business is any business that carries out any stage of production, processing or distribution of food. This includes caterers, primary producers (such as farmers), manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

What does the law say?

In order to comply with the law you must be able to demonstrate that you produce food safely. You can do this by demonstrating how you produce food while conforming to HACCP principles. All staff must have an appropriate level of knowledge of food hygiene in order to produce food safely. You must also register your premises with your local environmental health department.

How do I become compliant with the law?

Training food handlers using a certified e-learning course is the fastest, easiest and most effective way to achieve compliance with the law. When you are audited by an Environmental Health Officer you must be able to show what provision you have made for food hygiene training.

Once each candidate completes our course we will send them a high quality food hygiene certificate through the post. This certificate can be shown to an environmental health officer as evidence that you have taken appropriate training.

The recommendations from the UK National Occupational Standards also suggest you should train your staff with a course that is relevant to the sector they work in. High Speed Training Ltd therefore offers a course to cover each of the three major sectors (Catering / Manufacturing / Retail).

Will my local authority accept this certificate?

Yes – our online food hygiene courses are an established way of meeting the legal requirement to have sufficient training.

Environmental Health Officers will often ask that you take a level 2 / basic / foundation food hygiene course. Upon completion of our course you will be sent a high quality level 2 certificate the next working day.

We are always happy to speak to your Environmental Health Officer to verify the syllabus covered by the course. All of our certificates contain a unique number and can be validated by entering the details on our website.

Where can I find more detailed information?