This week the Food Standards Agency (FSA) launched their national food hygiene rating scheme nationwide.  Finally, there’s no need to be concerned about the standard of food from that dodgy burger van in town, your local Chinese takeaway or that grotty-looking greasy cafe in your village!   Instead, you’ll be able to see the ‘scores on the doors’ for all food establishments, from shopping centers to high street pubs and restaurants.

The FSA, in partnership with local authorities, will assign stickers to restaurants, takeaways, cafes and supermarket for display on their shop front.  The stickers are bright green and black, and show a rating of 0 – 5 in the new national food hygiene rating scheme.

Early adopters of the food hygiene rating scheme published their ratings on line at food.gov.uk/ratings earlier this year.   The outstanding authorities are expected to join and post their scores over the coming months.

How it works:

After an inspection by the local council’s food safety officers, food establishments will receive their stickers for display, which will tell visiting consumers if the inspection found that ‘urgent improvement’ is necessary or if standards are ‘very good’.

The stickers feature five circled numbers, with that particular establishment’s rating clearly highlighted (see picture: right).

Food safety officers will check how hygienically food is handled, how it is prepared, cooked, re-heated, cooled and stored. They’ll also look at the condition of the building, its facilities and how it manages food safety (for example, fridge temperatures and staff training).

The aim of this exercise, according to the FSA, is to cut reported one million food poisoning cases, which are reported every year.

The food hygiene rating system will help to reduce food poisoning cases by letting potential customers view establishments’ rating.  This should encourage owners to be more vigilant with their food hygiene practices and allow people the opportunity to reward highly rated establishments with their custom.

The roll out of this scheme replaces the many ‘local’ schemes many authorities operated across the UK, as many of the grading schemes were inconsistent (different methods and symbols).  The new scheme will help to avoid confusion and provide clarity and consistency for customers.

A high proportion of surveyed members of the public  (86%) believe that food hygiene standards are very important when they’re eating out.

In addition, 23% of people indicated that they’ve sent back undercooked poultry when eating out.

By promoting the concepts of being active and eating well, SmallSteps4Life is an interactive website designed to motivate young people to improve their well-being, by setting themselves achievable goals. The site allows all schools – primary and secondary – to play games, take part in quizzes and post their own challenges, like eating a healthy breakfast and walking to school every day. Teachers are also allowed to nominate people they feel have done exceptionally well for the title of ‘Champions’ of SmallSteps4Life.

The idea behind the site isn’t just short-term goals, however; using the Olympics as an inspiration, SmallSteps4Lifeaims to encourage overall behaviour changes in young people, to help them get used to living active, healthy lifestyles. The Food Standards Agency’s Director of Consumer Choice and Dietary Health, Gill Fine, says the site is “a unique project because it addresses healthy eating, exercise and emotional health”. She is also sure the project will make a real difference to the young people involved, saying of the pilot project that it “made them feel fitter, healthier, and more positive, but most importantly, they had fun!” Indeed, the results showed that over 70% of primary school students and 65% of secondary school students were still continuing their health challenges four months after the end of the project!

For more information about SmallSteps4Life, have a look at the website for yourself; http://smallsteps4life.direct.gov.uk/

A series of focus groups have been conducted across England and Scotland, looking into people’s views and awareness of food labelling. The findings of these groups were published by the Food Standards Agency today and showed that people have a high awareness of front-of-pack labelling, feeling it was an important way of making informed choices about food, as well as saving time.

However, there was an agreement amongst the forum members that a unified system of front-of-pack labelling would be of great help. The different schemes used by different retailers to display the same information not only makes comparisons more difficult, they claimed, but also sheds doubt on the trustworthiness of the information itself. They agreed that a single way of displaying the information would be quicker to compare, easier to understand and more trustworthy than the current variety of systems.

The forums decided the most important elements of font-of-pack labelling include the amount of each nutrient in grams, the percentage of the Guideline Daily Amount this amount equates to and the traffic light system for quick decision-making. An example of such a label could be as follows:

Labelling

To help businesses comply with food hygiene regulations, the Food Standards Agency is launching a nationwide campaign today, designed to raise awareness of the tools available to help food businesses stay on the right side of the law. Specifically designed to help businesses that supply food directly to consumers (takeaways, restaurants and cafes, for example) the campaign will run from today until the 1st of March.

Included in the campaign will be various tools, spread across the UK, all providing advice on effective food management techniques. These tools include England’s Safer Food, Better Business, Scotland’s RetailSafe, Wales’ CookSafe and Northern Ireland’s Safe Catering, along with radio adverts, online promotion and campaign posters. In fact, food hygiene campaign posters can be downloaded from the links on this page.

The Food Standards Agency’s Head of Enforcement, Sarah Appleby, said of the campaign that it is “to help to support the important work that local authorities do to ensure that food businesses comply with food law. It is also to give businesses the opportunity to achieve higher ratings for the rollout in 2010 of the national “scores on the doors” scheme for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Food Hygiene Information Scheme in Scotland”.

Recently the Food Hygiene Blog reported a massive increase in cases of a certain type of salmonella across England and Wales in 2009. Regular readers will remember that it was suspected the incidents were related to eggs sourced from outside the UK, specifically one establishment in Spain.

Yesterday, the Food Standards Agency updated us on the progress of this investigation, reporting that Spanish authorities have found salmonella in a flock at Granja Avícola ‘El Angel’, in Spain. From now one, no eggs from the affected flock will be distributed until total decontamination is complete. Naturally the FSA is advising any companies that have received eggs from Granja Avícola ‘El Angel’ not to sell them and instead send them to be pasteurised. Although they have already contacting every establishment known to have purchased these eggs, they cannot be certain they have reached everybody.

As far as consumer advice goes, it is important to remember this is not a major outbreak; the majority of eggs on sale in the UK are sourced in the UK, meaning there is a much lower chance of them containing salmonella. However, as you can never be 100% certain, it is highly advisable to read up on food hygiene and eggs.

A draft report into the amount of energy required to stay healthy was published today by The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition.  The values published are 16% than those found in the last investigation into energy requirements, conducted in 1991, but the food standards agency declares that it is likely the new draft requirements provide a more accurate description of the current situation in the UK.

Although SACN is not making recommendations based on its findings, it is stressing the importance that people to do not start increasing their calorific intake based on the new draft values.  The huge amount of overweight and obese people in the country implies that already too many of us take in much more energy than we need and more emphasis must be placed on increasing physical activity in relation to any increase of energy intake.  Only with proper food safety training can changes in diet and nutrition be fully advised.

The food standards agency is advising consumers not to change their dietary habits based on the SACN findings.  In fact, most people should consider eating less and exercising more – this fact remains a sad but stable truth in our culture.

Safer Food, Better Business is the Food Standards Agency’s approach to ensuring that small businesses fully understand their responsibilities under the EU Food Hygiene Legislation.  In the form of a series of packs and guides, the Safer Food, Better Business approach has been designed to help these small businesses create and manage food safety systems to ensure they are complying with the relevant food hygiene requirements.  Due to the fact that any business involved with food has to comply with the legislation, the packs are specifically designed around a variety of different food businesses, like caterers and restaurants, as well as professions in which food service is a secondary role – childminders and care home employees, for example.

The accompanying DVD, ‘Working with Food?  What you Need to Know before You Start’, helps food businesses provide food safety training to their staff and is available in sixteen different languages – making it as accessible as possible to the majority of the population.  To this extent, there is no excuse for businesses, no matter how small, not to attempt to ensure they are complying with food hygiene legislation.