Report food that may pose a health risk – it’s the law

Food Standard Agency (FSA) lawyers have just confirmed that it is a criminal offence for any food or catering business regardless of size to not inform their local authority that they may have sold food posing a health risk.

Although there was previous confusion regarding the law, the warning is now clear-cut for all catering businesses. The exact wording of the FSA legal team reads:

^Failure by any food business operator to report immediately to the competent authority "when it has reason to believe that a food it has placed on the market is injurious to human health constitutes a criminal offence".^

This means that shops who hire private Environmental Health Officers to visit their premises and advise them to throw away food samples and don’t tell them straight away are actually committing a criminal offence.

The FSA advice means that it’s within a local authority’s powers to take a food business to court for simply failing to inform them of an incident regardless of whether investigating EHPs find a risk to health or not.

Don’t be caught out. If you have a query about food hygiene, please contact NFFF head office.

The full article can be read by clicking on the link below:

http://www.ehn-online.com/news/article.aspx?id=11796&dm_i=1RSV%2C2K8O4%2CBS6A18%2C9CIP0%2C1