Setting up a Food Business

If you are planning to open a business that prepares sells or handles food, you must register it with us at least 28 days before you open. There is no charge for this and you don’t need to re-register each year. If you have more than one food business you would need to register each one separately. It is very important for businesses to come to us at the beginning because they will get everything right and they will be less likely to have to make costly changes at a later date. The food safety team are happy to offer advice on an individual bases so you can bring your plans into us and we will give you guidance on how to comply with the legislation. As well as food safety you would need to think about health and safety at work legislation, you may need planning permission and building control for a new food business. If you wish to have entertainment or serve alcohol you will also need to have licenses for these activities. If you have five of more employees you will need to have a health and safety at work policy and you will also have to carry out risk assessments. It is against the law to smoke in most work places and public places. In Belfast a lot of places now are providing smoking shelters but these must comply with strict design requirements. No smoking signs are also required to be displayed. You will also have to consider contacting other government agencies such as revenue and customs and land and property services. The premises you choose must be suitable for your food business and it must allow you to prepare food safely. Emphasis is always put to the seating area but it is important that you have good kitchen space to allow for complete separation of raw and cooked food during handling and storage. You are required to have enough suitably located wash hand basins for staff to wash their hands and there should be hot and cold running water with materials for washing and drying their hands hygienically. The food standards agency has published detailed guidance on hand washing within a document entitled ECOLI 0157 An Invisible Threat to your Business. The use of no hand operated taps is recommended but if they are not available taps should be turned off using a paper towel. Toilets can’t lead directly into rooms were food is handled and prepared so you would need to have a small lobby and both doors should be kept closed at all times. Ensure adequate facilities are available for staff to change their clothes, your premises must also have adequate ventilation and depending on what type of food you produce you may need to consider installing a grease trap. The floor and walls in any food room must be smooth, hard wearing and washable and in a good state of repair, ceilings should be in good condition, smooth and easy to clean with no flaking paint or plaster. Windows which are going to be used for ventilation would need to be fitted with insect proof screens. Doors must be easy to clean, you will need adequate facilities for cleaning,disinfecting and storing your utensils and equipment. It is ideal to have separate sinks for washing equipment and washing food and sinks used to wash food would need to have water of drinking quality. If space is limited and separate sinks cannot be installed, then a multi use sink would need to be thoroughly disinfected between different uses. Adequate procedures must be put in place to ensure pests are controlled. You can employ a specialist pest control contractor. Or alternatively you can carry out your own checks providing you know where and what to look for. It is important to remove waste and other rubbish from rooms containing food as quickly as possible to avoid it building up. You will also need to have adequate external facilities for disposing of and storing food waste and other rubbish. There are specific requirements for mobile food businesses and advice is available from our food safety and building control teams. Hello my name is Paula, I am from Belfast City Council, environmental health, I am here to do your routine food hygiene inspection. An environmental health officer will carry out an inspection once your business is up and running. If contraventions of food hygiene legislation are found, you will be advised what you need to do to comply with the law and an appropriate timescale will be given. In more serious cases, enforcement action may be taken against you. To ensure this does not happen to you please make full use from the service and advice available from the food safety team. So this shows the tractability of all our food that comes in, it shows when it's delivered, our supplier. You are required by law to put in place food safety managing systems and to keep up to date records of all food business activities. Your choice of supplier is important because a suppliers' reliability and the safety and quality of food they supply could affect your business. Should there be a food safety incident, such as a product recall it would be very important that you have good systems in place for traceability. The safest way to do this, is to keep all invoices, receipts and order forms. It is important that any member of staff who handles food is supervised and instructed or trained in food hygiene in a way that is appropriate for the work they do. There are a number of different packs in various languages available from our offices and online. Our officers will be happy to advise you on which is more suitable for your business. If staff have diarrhoea or vomiting they must not handle food and must not enter a food handling area. They would need to be excluded from work for a full 48 hours after their symptoms have ended. After the inspection you will be given a food hygiene rating that reflects the standards found at your premises. At the bottom of the scale is 0 and this means urgent improvement is required, at the top of the scale is 5 and that means the hygiene standards are very good. This information will be made available to the public online and you will also be given a window sticker to display your food hygiene rating. It is important to get food hygiene right. If you get it wrong it will be bad for your business. You could be sued by a customer or prosecuted by the council, both of which will damage your reputation. Don’t forget to use our web page which is regularly updated on current food safety issues. We look forward to working with you on your new business venture, let us help you get it right, right from the start. Subtitles: UTV