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Environmental Health Officers can take a range of actions if they inspect a food business and find that food hygiene and safety in the establishment is not up to standard. All food businesses that prepare and/or serve food for human consumption are liable to be inspected, and if the inspection team find cause for concern, this can cause major issues for the business.
We have experience in helping restaurants and other food businesses to successfully navigate enforcement actions in relation to food standards. Call us on 0161 696 6250 to find out how we can help you.
If food hygiene or safety issues are found when your food business is being inspected, the Environmental Health Officer may choose to issue a remedial action notice, which will relate to a specific process that you normally use, equipment you use or other parts of your normal operation.
At the time of writing, remedial action notices can only be issued in England to food businesses that are approved under EC Regulation 853/2004, and not to English food businesses that are unapproved. However, in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, they can be issued to food businesses that are either approved or unapproved.
The remedial action notice can be served to prohibit the use of any equipment or any area of the food business premises, to impose conditions on or stop a specific process, or to limit the operation of the business or stop it completely. Failure to comply with this notice is illegal.
This notice doesn’t require a breach as serious as one that poses an imminent risk to health (i.e. where a Hygiene Emergency Prohibition Notice could be served), and is often used where there are breaches of the guidelines such as a lack of hot water supply, cleaning issues or some cross- contamination problems.
A food hygiene detention notice refers to the enforcement action taken by an Environmental Health Officer who is inspecting a food business and wishes to detain some or all of the food present in the establishment. This could be used as evidence in a later prosecution if an offence is found to have occurred.
As an experienced food industry law firm, along with our expertise across the board in legal services for businesses, we can offer specialist support if you’ve received a food hygiene remedial action notice or a detention notice. Get in touch for more information by calling 0161 696 6250.
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