Food safety

This is the Council's Food Service Plan (part of the joint Food Safety and Health & Safety Laws Enforcement Plan 2023/2024). The document explains to you how we protect and promote food safety throughout the District by a combination of measures which include enforcing food safety law, sampling of foods and water and providing food hygiene training for you and your staff.

A copy of the full Plan is attached below.

Food Service Plan

This list below is current as of January 2023. For information regarding new food businesses please contact Regulatory Services on 01727 819 406. Please be aware that this list does not show any details for home caterers or childminders.

A hard copy of St Albans City and District Council Food Register is available to view at the Council offices.

Food Premises Register 2023

It is a legal requirement for food premises to register with their local authority.

Businesses that need to register include:

• restaurants

• cafes

• takeaways

• retailers selling food items (including drinks and confectionary)

• home caterers and cake makers

If you operate your business within the St Albans district you must register with us 28 days before you start any food operations. It is free to register your business and registration cannot be refused.

Register a Food Business

• St Albans Food Registration Privacy Notice ( pdf - 97.39 KB )

You may be fined, imprisoned for up to 2 years or both if you run a food business without registering.

If you are already trading and have not registered you need to do so as soon as possible.

If you make, prepare or handle food that comes from animals, for example meat or dairy products, other than for direct sale to the consumer, your premises may need to be approved by the council before you can undertake the activity.

Further helpful information on starting up a new food business is available from the Food Standards Agency website

When we receive your registration form the information will be logged onto our system and an initial inspection will be allocated to an officer.  Once you have started trading an inspection will be carried out.

Officers will visit your premises to check if your business is complying with food law and producing food that is safe to eat.

Officers have the right to enter and inspect your premises at any reasonable time. Authorised officers will usually arrive without making an appointment, officers will carry photographic identification which you should check.

Officers can take ‘enforcement action’ to protect the public. This can include:

• seizing foods suspected to be unfit for human consumption
• writing you a letter following an inspection or outlining non-compliances and asking you to correct these
• serving a formal legal notice that sets out certain things you must do, or forbidding you from using certain processes, premises or equipment
• recommending a prosecution in serious cases

Officers will allow you enough time to make changes unless there is an immediate risk to public health.  You can appeal if you do not agree with the actions they have taken.

To help you to comply with the law and prepare for your inspection we have provided below some information and links to websites that we hope you will find useful.

You must be able to demonstrate good structural and operational hygiene as well as an effective food safety management system.

A: Structural & Operational Hygiene:

These are often known as the hygiene pre-requisites and are the foundation for good food safety. They include:

• Construction of the premises (this will depend on the type of food business) 

• Layout of the premises including

  • zoning to prevent cross contamination

  • toilets must not open directly into food rooms 

• Maintenance (of the premises and equipment)

• Pest control

• Cleaning

• Disinfection

  • When the same non-food contact surfaces such as worktops, sinks etc are used at different times to prepare raw and ready to eat foods, they must be cleaned and disinfected between uses.  Chemical disinfectants used in these areas need to comply with BS EN standards 1276 and/or 13697 or equivalent.  You should check the manufacturer’s information on the product that you select to see if it complies with this standard.

  • It is also very important to ensure the correct dilution (you may find it easier to buy pre-diluted / ready to use products to avoid confusion) and contact times for the product that you select.

• Waste management (including refuse and waste oil) 

• Water quality 

• Purchase control (buying safe food from reputable suppliers) 

• Preventing cross contamination

  • The Food Standards Agency have produced the following advice See this link

• Maintaining the cold chain (fridges and freezers) 

• Personal hygiene and staff health 

  • Separate handwashing facilities must be provided

• Training

  • You must make sure that have staff who handle or prepare food have adequate training. This can range from issuing simple guidance on food safety and personal hygiene to new members of staff to more formal training.

  • Details of food hygiene training courses can be found on our food hygiene training page

• Allergy awareness

• Labelling advice – Please contact Hertfordshire County Council Trading Standards Department

B: Documented Food Safety Management System or HACCP

All ‘food safety management procedures’ follow the principles of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP). HACCP is a system that helps you look at how to handle food and introduce procedures to make sure the food produced is safe to eat.

You must also:

• keep up-to-date documents and records relating to your procedures
• review your procedures if you change what you produce or how you work

The procedures can be applied flexibly for different types and sizes of food businesses. Your records must include any procedures in place to make sure food is safe to eat.

To help businesses, the Food Standards Agency has developed ‘off the shelf’ style food safety management systems designed mainly for smaller catering and retail businesses. Specialist packs have been developed for:

• Caterers  

• Retailers  

• Indian cuisine  

• Chinese cuisine in English  

• Chinese cuisine in Cantonese 

• Childminders

• Residential care homes  

Known as Safer Food, Better Business, packs and diaries can be downloaded for free and printed from the Food Standards Agency website at www.food.gov.uk/sfbb

It is also possible to buy pre-printed, bound Safer Food Better Business packs and diaries from online sellers, which you can find using an online search.

Once obtained your Safer Food, Better Business pack will need to be completed.

Larger businesses may wish to use MyHACCP which is aimed at small food manufacturing businesses in the UK.  MyHACCP is a free web tool that will guide you through the process of developing a food safety management system based on the HACCP principles.

The following high risk activities may need to develop their own specific documented food safety management systems.

• butchers’ produce cooked meats,

• sushi, raw

• fresh fruit juice production

• caterers with more complex menus

• vacuum packing

• sous vide

• less than thoroughly cooked meats

In these circumstances we recommend that you obtain the assistance of a competent food safety consultant if you do not have the training and expertise to do this yourself.

A directory of food safety consultants is available at the CIEH website

Further information is available in the ‘Registering And Managing A Food Business’ guide which has been produced by the Food Standards Agency

What the officer finds during their inspection will affect the score you may be awarded under the National Food Hygiene Rating Scheme.  Scores range from 0 to 5, and members of the public have access to this information.

The ratings will be published on the Food Standards Agency Website food.gov.uk/ratings

To ensure fairness to businesses, St Albans District Council have an appeals procedure in place for Food Business Operators to dispute the food hygiene rating given in respect of their establishment if they consider it to be unjust.

Food Business Operators have a 'right to reply' and this will be published at food.gov.uk/ratings with the food hygiene rating.

The purpose is to enable the Food Business Operators to give an explanation of subsequent actions that have been taken to rectify non-compliance's or to give reasons for the circumstances at the time of the inspection, rather than to complain or criticise the FHRS or ‘inspecting officer’.

FBOs can send comments electronically via FHRS@stalbans.gov.uk or in writing to the Regulatory Services Manager at St Albans District Council. The text may be edited by us before being published in order to remove any offensive, defamatory, clearly inaccurate or irrelevant remarks.

To download the right to reply form please click on the link below.

•  Right to Reply form ( PDF - 44.01 KB )

Alternatively if you would like to request a hard copy of the Right to Reply or Appeal form you can contact the Business Compliance Team on 01727 819 406 or email FHRS@stalbans.gov.uk stating your business name and address.

Fats, oils and grease (FOG) are generated during the preparation, cooking and cleaning up of food, pots and pans, utensils, crockery and the kitchen itself. If FOG and leftover food go down your pipes, they will become solid and block your drains.

It is important that everyone working for you knows the best way to manage your kitchen’s waste. Training employees and helping them understand the need for grease management and good kitchen practice can really help to prevent blockages in your business’s pipes.

Our best advice

• Scrape any leftover food into the bin and wipe pots, pans and utensils with paper towels before washing up  
• Use sink strainers in plug holes
• Install a Grease Removal Unit or Grease Separator as a form of grease management to prevent FOG reaching your waste pipes
• Clean and maintain any grease management equipment regularly
• Collect leftover FOG in an airtight container and arrange for it to be collected by a licensed waste contractor
• Keep a record of grease management maintenance and FOG waste collection dates

What the law says

Keeping fats, oils and grease out of drains is always the most effective solution to keep your pipes clear of blockages. Discharging these substances is illegal and you could face fines or prosecution under Section 111 of The Water Industry Act 1991 if you damage sewers.

For more information please visit the Thames Water's website.

From the 1st January 2021 the UK was listed as a ‘Third Country’ and foods that comprise products of animal origin (POAO) and other designated foods intended for export to an EU Member state are subject to the same import controls as other non-EU countries. They must be accompanied by an Export Health Certificate (EHC) which provides documentary evidence that it meets the EUs health requirements before they will be allowed to enter the EU via a border control post (BCP) or a point of entry (Northern Ireland).

Detailed guidance on food exports can be found on the Gov.Uk https://www.gov.uk/guidance/export-food-and-agricultural-products-special-rules

The Food Health and Safety Team provides Export Health Certification[]  (EHC) Services for certain foods i.e fishery products, live bivalve molluscs and *composite products exclusively containing fish & egg products and also foods that are not of animal origin FNOAO. The service was recently extended to include High-Risk Food Not of Animal Origin (HRFNAO) food which presents a risk to human health due to contamination by aflatoxins, pesticides, salmonella or dioxins.

The service is a non-statutory function and charges will apply. 

Fees will cover processing of Export Health Certificates/attestations, Inspection and any sampling that needs to be carried out. The fees have been set to recover the costs incurred for providing the service, at the level of £176.25 per EHC for FNOAO; £208.10 per EHC for HRFNOAO and £76.14 per attestation paperwork.

The level of service and the actions required will depend on the nature of the food being exported and the legislative requirements relevant to that particular food. For example High-Risk Food Not of Animal Origin (HRFNAO) food which presents a risk to human health will be subject to a site visit and sampling while other foods may only require a documentary check before issue of an Export Health Certificate. Once samples are taken they are sent to an official UKAS accredited laboratory for analysis (please note the laboratory analysis does not form part of this service and would be charged separately by the lab).

Only exporters that have registered on the Government’s import/export platform IMSOC/TRACES https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/tracesnt/login can use the service. The service is primarily intended for businesses based within the district of St Albans, however it can be provided upon request to other businesses outside the district, depending on resources available at the time.

Food businesses mentoring services

St Albans City and District Council’s Food, Health and Safety Team is offering a mentoring service which will be tailored to meet a business’s specific requirements and help them achieve the highest possible food safety standards.

It is important to ensure food safety is maintained and improved within your business so that your customers can feel assured that the food they eat is safe.

Who better to ask for advice on compliance?

We are the people who carry out enforcement visits on a daily basis and ensure that people are complying correctly with legislation. Therefore we are in a good position to now offer a low cost bespoke mentoring service for businesses who request our help in order to raise standards.

We understand that some businesses may find food safety legislation complex and find it difficult to apply it to their own businesses and therefore we offer this mentoring service so that we can help you to do this. 

When opening a new food business it can seem complicated in relation to what may be required on your first food hygiene inspection and how you even advise the local authority that you wish to trade as a food business.

We can offer new businesses advice, prior to opening, such as:

• The need to register the food business with us and how this should be done;
• Guidance on layout and structural requirements at the premises;
• Advice on key controls i.e. temperature control, cross contamination, allergens and pest control;
• The level of food hygiene training that staff should have;
• The need for a documented food safety management system. 
• Provide an-off-the shelf Food Safety Management System (‘Hertfordshire Safe Food Pack’).

We will help you to complete a documented food safety management system by carrying out coaching in the Hertfordshire Safe Food Pack.

A comprehensive food safety management system will help a business to fully comply with food hygiene regulations, achieve good hygiene ratings (under the under the FSA's Food Hygiene Rating System) and above all will ensure that all food produced/handled is safe to eat.

• We can help all businesses that may have had a poor food hygiene rating and wish to raise this by fully understanding how the food legislation applies to their business and we will customise our service to your needs.
• We can also help good business who might just need a little extra help to gain a food hygiene rating of 5 by discussing issues raised on their food hygiene inspections and ensuring improvements are made.
• The visit can also involve any staff that you may have to ensure that they are also aware of their responsibilities and that procedures that you have put in place, are being followed by the staff in the business.
• We can show you how to request a re-score revisit and talk you through the process to help you get a higher rating.
• Poor scores can result if the food safety management system is not detailed enough or is not being effectively implemented and the service can advise how this can be improved.

Why choose us?

Obviously the advice, if followed, should result in a subsequent straightforward inspection visit as you will be aware of the rules and regulations with which you need to comply and therefore an acceptable food hygiene rating score should be achieved.

Following the visit we will confirm in writing what has been discussed so that you can be sure you have something to work with to ensure that the required standards are met.

The cost

A visit for these purposes will be charged at £248 for 2.5 hours which includes an on-site visit to your business premises, helping you to identify the key hazards/controls within your business and tailoring the Hertfordshire Safe Food Pack or other recognised Food Safety Management System i.e. Safer Food Better Business, Cook Safe etc.

Additional or ‘one off’ requests for support/advice will be charged at the hourly rate of £120 (a minimum half-hour rate applies).

Book our service

Contact us to book a convenient time and date, or to discuss the provision of this service. Ask to speak to a member of our Food, Health & Safety team or email fhrs@stalbans.gov.uk with your request, business name and contact details.

FBOs have a 'right to reply' and this will be published at food.gov.uk/ratingswith the food hygiene rating.

The purpose is to enable the FBO to give an explanation of subsequent actions that have been taken to rectify non-compliance or to give reasons for the circumstances at the time of the inspection, rather than to complain or criticise the FHRS or ‘inspecting officer’.

FBOs can send comments electronically via FHRS@stalbans.gov.uk or in writing to the Regulatory Services Manager at St Albans District Council. The text may be edited by us before being published in order to remove any offensive, defamatory, clearly inaccurate or irrelevant remarks.

To download the right to reply form please click on the link below.

Alternatively if you would like to request a hard copy of the Right to Reply or Appeal form you can contact the Business Compliance Team on 01727 819 406 or email FHRS@stalbans.gov.uk stating your business name and address.

• Right to Reply form ( pdf - 44.01 KB )

The appeals procedure is relevant where the FBO believes that the food hygiene rating given is unjust as it does not reflect the hygiene standards and management controls found at their establishment at the time of inspection.

The appeal has to be made within the period of 21 days beginning with the date the FBO received the food hygiene rating. If the 21 day period has expired and no appeal has been received, then the food hygiene rating will be published on the FSA website

To appeal a food hygiene rating, the FBO needs to download and complete the form below and return it by post to the Regulatory Services Manager at St Albans District Council or by email to FHRS@stalbans.gov.uk

• Food Hygiene Rating Scheme Appeal Form ( msword - 184.00 KB )

The FBO can make a request for a revisit at any time after the original inspection has taken place.

The request should be made in writing and outline the case for a revisit, i.e indicating what action has been taken to improve the business and correct any problems. Evidence such as photos to support the request can be sent along with the form. The cost for a revisit is £250.

More information can be found here on our Food Hygiene Rating Scheme: Revisit Charging Policy

To request a revisit complete the form below and return it by post to the Regulatory Services Manager at St Albans District Council or by email to FHRS@stalbans.gov.uk

• FHRS Revisit form 22 ( pdf - 110.33 KB )