Safer Food Better Business

Do you have a documented food safety management system operating within your business? If the answer is no, you may not be complying with the law.

In January 2006 legislation changed and since then, all food businesses must be able to show what they do to make food that is safe to eat – and have it written down. As a result of this, when your premises are inspected by your local environmental health team, they will want to see a copy of your food safety management system and will also want to see that it is operational within your business.

Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) is a tool that has been developed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), together with caterers and environmental health officers to help small, independent food businesses comply with the law. It is a simple, user-friendly system which keeps record-keeping to a minimum, reduces the risks of mistakes and provides an excellent training resource for your staff, without providing a burden to the business. The pack consists of two parts:
 
Safe Methods
These are guidance sheets that tell you exactly what you should be doing in your business and why you should be doing it. The Safe Methods are divided into the following groups:
 
o Cross-Contamination
o Cleaning
o Chilling
o Cooking
o Management
 
There is a section in each Safe Method which asks "How Do You Do This?" and this is the part that you complete to make the SFBB pack specific to your individual business. Once you have completed your Safe Methods, you can train your staff in the correct procedures to follow – and if they forget or are not sure about something, they can easily refer back to the pack.
 
Diary
Each day complete and sign the diary section to say that within your business, your safe methods have been followed and supervised. This takes just a couple of minutes a day! If something goes wrong, or if there is a significant change within your business, you will need to record this in your diary and say what you have done about it. For example your freezer might not be working properly and you may have to call out an engineer, or you may have to send a member of staff home as he is not well, or your meat supplier may have delivered some out of date product which you rejected, or you may have bought a new microwave oven. This is what is called "exception reporting" and it means that record-keeping is kept to an absolute minimum so as not to burden small businesses with unnecessary paperwork.
 
The SFBB packs are available completely free of charge from the Food Standards Agency, by contacting either 0845 606 0667 or e-mailing foodstandards@ecgroup.co.uk, stating which pack you require. Alternatively you can download the pack at www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/sfbbfullpack.pdf (please note that this download is 5MB).
 
If you decide you require some assistance with completing the pack and ensuring that it is fully implemented within your business, a qualified food safety coach from NSF-CMi, the FSA's contracted framework provider, can visit your premises and help you work through the pack. NSF - CMi have been involved with the national roll-out of SFBB since its development and have subsequently worked with over 150 local authorities, supporting in excess of 20,000 businesses. Their team of 120 SFBB coaches, all of whom have had a background in catering, can provide nationwide cover.

Finally, if there is a ‘Scores-on-the-Doors' scheme operating within your area, you may be able to increase your star-rating by having SFBB in place, so make sure you have Safer Food, Better Business – NOW!
 
For more information please go to www.food.gov.uk or in the first instance, contact Ian Gauld on 01372 466966.

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