Causes and prevention of Contamination and Cross Contamination

Causes and prevention of Contamination and Cross Contamination

We can help prevent Contamination or Cross Contamination by:

• Keeping raw foods and cooked, or ready to eat foods, separate.
• Keeping all foods covered.
• Separate areas used for different types of food, particularly raw and High Risk foods.
• Good cleaning practices.
• Good personal hygiene.

Staff

Staff have a major role to play to prevent contamination and cross contamination.

You need to have high standards of personal hygiene; this will be covered later on.

You need to be trained to do all the jobs in the shop properly.

You need to report any food safety issues they find as soon as possible and make sure any issues are sorted out.

We also need to make sure anyone entering the preparation areas of the shop, for example delivery drivers or contractors, also have the same standards.

Ways of working

Prevent movement of bacteria from raw to cooked product by good hand washing, using separate areas and different equipment and utensils, such as tongs to handle ready to eat products.

All cooked or ready to eat products should be wrapped or covered and dated where necessary.

Store in separate areas if possible.

Store ready to eat above raw foods if they are kept in the same fridges or freezers.

Premises and Equipment

These should be well maintained to make sure there are no issues such as flaking paint, damaged tiling or damaged, or broken, equipment.

Ideally shops should have a Glass Policy which will make sure we try not to have glass in preparation areas, unless unavoidable. If we know there is glass we need to make sure it is checked regularly to make sure it is not damaged, or is protected. Examples would be use of Light diffusers over strip lighting, or weekly checks on any glass doors on hot boxes. There should also be a clear reporting and cleaning up procedure if any glass does get broken so we can make sure there is no risk of glass being found in the food you are selling. Remember this also applies if you wear glasses.

Cleaning

Cleaning needs to be carried out correctly and all cleaning chemicals should be stored somewhere away from any food to prevent chemical contamination of the food. It is also important to clean anything that may be contaminated to prevent the contamination spreading to food. Cleaning will be covered in more detail in Section 6.

Pest control

Pests can contaminate food so it is important to not have pest issues in the shop. This will be covered in more detail later in Section 4.

Allergens

You need to be aware of any Allergens that may be found in the shop and in the food you sell.

These could be in ingredients in bought-in foods, such as meat pies or batter mixes.

Menu descriptions should clearly say if a product contains an allergen, for example if you sell burgers in Sesame Seed buns it is important to let customers know, as they may be allergic to Sesame seeds.

It is helpful if all staff serving customers know the product range and what they are made of as allergy sufferers often ask the person serving them about what they could eat. It is a good idea to have a folder behind the counter with the ingredient lists from all the products you sell for staff to be able to check.

Allergens or allergen containing ingredients also need to be kept separate so that they do not accidentally contaminate other products. This needs to be when they are being stored and also when products are being prepared.

You also need to think about what you take in to work that may contain allergens. For example if you take peanut butter sandwiches or a bag of peanuts to eat for you lunch there is the possibility that you could contaminate the shop’s products with traces of nut, which can be fatal to someone with a nut allergy.