This Food and Hygiene Policy is an essential document for any business in the food industry.

Food handling businesses are under a legal duty to ensure that food is safe to eat and meet a high standard of preparation.

There is a lot of legislation which regulates foodstuffs, and a lot of guidance and codes of practice produced by Government and Industry. Legislation covers all parts of the food production and distribution chain, including:

• production
• processing
• packaging and labelling
• importing
• distribution
• retailing and
• catering

All ‘food handlers’ must comply with:

• The Food Safety Act 1990, which provides the framework for food legislation in Great Britain and creates offences in relation to safety, quality and labelling.
• The General Food Law Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, which creates general principles and requirements of food law across Europe.
• The Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, which provide for the enforcement, including penalties of certain provisions of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 and amended the Food Safety Act 1990 to bring it in line with this regulation.
• The European Communities Act 1972, under which European food law is transposed into national legislation.
• Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 which covers the hygiene of foodstuffs and sets out general hygiene requirements for all food businesses and related guidance.
• Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 which sets specific hygiene rules for certain food businesses dealing with products of animal origin and related guidance.
• Regulation (EC) No 854/2004 which sets specific rules for official controls on products of animal origin intended for human consumption and related guidance.

Enforcement of regulations on food standards, safety and hygiene is primarily the responsibility of local authorities.  The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is an independent government agency responsible to ensure that food and feed law is applied across the entire food chain. The FSA also audit enforcement activity with respect to local authority food safety and standards controls.

Food handling businesses are legally required to identify potential food safety hazards relevant to the business and have procedures in place to manage these potential hazards. They must have food safety management procedures in place to eliminate or reduce as far as reasonably practicable the risks posed by food safety hazards in the workplace to ensure the food is safe to eat.

The aim of this Food and Hygiene Policy is to raise the profile of food safety and hygiene within the organisation and to emphasise and promote awareness of the existing arrangements for the strict management of food hygiene.

This Food and Hygiene Policy is in Microsoft Word format, written in plain English, easy to use and edit.