Alternative enforcement strategy
You may be aware that Plymouth City Councils Food Safety Team carries out food hygiene inspections of premises in the City that prepare, store or distribute food. Food also includes bottles/tins of drink, alcohol, crisps, sweets, etc.
Although relevant food businesses are required to register with the Council and the Council is required to inspect every new food business, the timing of the initial onsite inspection and then the frequency of any future visits and type of future contact made is determined through a process of risk assessment. Once the initial risk assessment has been completed if the food provision is considered to be low risk alternative types of visits can be used in the future including self-assessment.
To help fulfil the requirements of our food safety inspection programme and to determine if your business should be include in our inspection programme, we contact our low risk food businesses and ask them to complete a self-assessment questionnaire. This information helps us decide if the activities are high or low risk business.
If your business is selected a link to the questionnaire will be emailed to the contact we have on our register.
If you have any concerns about the form you can send us a query using our online form.
Please complete the online questionnaire as fully as possible.
This arrangement will hopefully be more convenient to both you and us. We will of course, continue to assist you comply with the law by providing appropriate advice and guidance on request.
Additionally, you can find more information and advice about food safety on the Food Standards Agency website.
Food business decision tree
Examples of both high and low risk food businesses can be found below.
The definition of a food business includes village halls, community centres, care homes and church halls where they handle food. There doesn’t need to be sale of food.
There are many different types of food businesses the examples below are intended as a guide only. The final decision about whether your food business is a high or low risk will be made by the food safety team when they have received your completed food business questionnaire.
If your business has changed you will need to phone the officer that sent you the questionnaire, letting them know there has been a change in your business. We will need to carry out a full inspection.
You must keep us informed of any major changes to your business.
- provide meals a few times a year
- provide food (i.e. cakes, jams, etc.) to a market stall once a year
- only sell drinks
- Chemists only selling sweets, baby food, slimming products etc.
- Off-licences, Public houses social clubs that only sell drinks and confectionary
- Newsagents that only sell low risk foods - sweets and wrapped food items
- Video shops that sell sweets
- Guest Houses providing less than twenty meals a day
- Village/Church halls where only occasional catering takes place
- Residential care homes providing less than twenty meals a day
- Home baking where the final product can be stored at ambient room temperature with no requirement for refrigeration
- Providing cookery classes to people
- Small scale, jam, chutney, honey, chocolate production
- Homemade cereals and cereal bars, flapjacks, loose dried fruits and nuts assembled or pre packed by seller
- Health product, vitamins, supplements nuts and dried fruits assembled or pre packed by seller
- Cake decoration items (edible and non-edible)
- Sweets and confectionary assembled or pre packed by seller and loose
- Prepared olives and flavoured oil (olive, truffle)
- Making up and selling hampers of pre-packaged food not requiring temperature control
- Breakfast and after school clubs supplying cereal, toast etc.
- Home baking where the final product contains fresh cream and lightly cooked shell eggs and that requires refrigeration before it is served.
- Preparation of raw meat and ready to eat foods in the same kitchen
- Baby food production
- Infused oils which have the ability for clostridium botulinum growth
- Sandwich rounds or production of sandwiches or other perishable foods
- Homemade ice cream
- Providing and handling of undercooked or raw foods like sashimi, ceviche or meats cooked rare as well as vacuum packed foods and sous vide processes.