Salford Stars - Food Hygiene Award
Introduction
The Salford Food Hygiene Award is a very simple and effective initiative that any local authority could implement successfully. The Award is assessed during an officer's normal routine inspection under the FSA's Code of Practice.
If proprietors meet the award criteria they are given a rating ranging from five stars to zero stars. Assessing the award takes up little officer time and the project is self-sustaining. The officer mailmerges the Award from their food inspection risk assessment in to an excel spreadsheet developed in partnership with Norwich City Council depicting a hygiene summary and an Award. The ease of this is essential, as it does not receive any specific funding.
2. Objectives and Purpose of the Project
- To demonstrate improvement in overall food hygiene standards
- To recognise businesses that go above and beyond what is required by the legislation
- To demonstrate local contribution to the Food Standards Agency’s food borne disease strategy
- To improve liaison with school caterers, helping to demonstrate increased performance of service
3. Participants
Salford City Council Environmental Health Department.
4. Methodology
The 5 star award (launched early 2007) is based on a grading system
for compliance with food safety management, structure and hygiene and results in premises receiving an Award from zero (poor) to five stars(excellent).
As a guide:-
A premises with zero to 1 Star demonstrates virtually no awareness of
"Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point" (HACCP), limited monitoring of critical control points and is poor in relation to structure and cleanliness. These premises are likely to be subject to further formal action in terms of Hygiene Improvement Notices, Simple Cautions and Prosecutions to secure future improvements.
A premises with 2 to 3 Stars demonstrates an awareness of HACCP and routinely monitoring the critical control points, but have limited documentation. The premises must be generally fair in relation to structure and cleanliness.
A four star premises shows an ability to demonstrate an understanding of HACCP and have good to very good food safety management systems. The premises must also have a very good structure and cleanliness throughout
A five star premises has a fully documented HACCP based system that has been successfully operated for a number of years and includes a system of self-inspection and verification coupled with excellent structure and hygiene practices.
5. Resources
No specific resources have been allocated to this project. One day per year is allocated to officer training to ensure consistency in score allocation.
6. Evaluation
The number of awards continues to increase year on year. The effectiveness of the award is evaluated using changes in compliance/ confidence in management scores recorded as part of the inspection-rating scheme. These indicate an overall improvement in premises with the award.
The biggest improvement was found within the Asian food sector, when this award was combined with the Curry Chief Competition. The revised marking scheme for the Curry Chief Competition increases the relevance of food hygiene and safety. It has also been used by Citywide (Salford's schools organisation) as a means to raise standards of hygiene within their school kitchens.
7. Obstacles
The project had to be developed with minimal cost, as no specific funding was available.
The project only addresses compliance with food hygiene legislation. Other award schemes include other criteria such as nutritional make-up and healthy eating issues. This project was unable to access relevant specialists due to resource constraints.
There are no specific revisits to assess ongoing standards for the Award because of resource/time constraints.
8. Lessons Learned
For the award scheme to be credible it is important to lay down strict criteria and officer guidance to ensure consistency.
9. Future Developments
The project is considered to be sustainable long term in its current format subject to any FSA award scheme plans.
A business pack has been launched with key documents to help premises record certain matters to aid more premises achieve five star ratings.
10. Contacts
For further information see: http://www.salford.gov.uk
Name: John Snow
Position: Principal Environmental Health Officer (Commercial Services) MCIEH, chartered environmental health practitioner
Telephone: 0161 925 1315
Fax: 0161 925 1076
Email address: John.Snow@salford.gov.uk
Website: http://www.salford.gov.uk/business/envhealth.htm
This case study was updated on 4 February 2008.
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