The Food Standards Agency (FSA) aims to reduce by 20% the number of food poisoning cases in the United Kingdom by 2006.  The Food Hygiene campaign is one of a number of initiatives that the Agency is using to reduce foodborne illness within the catering industry and to raise awareness amongst members of the public.

As part of their campaign the FSA has been supporting local food hygiene initiatives and made grants available to local authorities in support of such initiatives during 2005 and 2006.

Owners of food businesses are legally obliged to train all their food handlers in food hygiene matters.  Training courses delivered in English are widely available, however, there are numerous food businesses within South Ayrshire whose first language is not English.

It was found that there was a need for training in Punjabi, Urdu, Cantonese and Mandarin languages.  Officers from the Council’s Environmental Health section addressed this matter by assessing the specialist food business training needs.  A bid of £3,200 was submitted to the Food Standards Agency to fund the provision of skilled trainers who spoke the relevant language. 

The bid was successful and in February 2006 elementary food hygiene training courses were delivered in South Ayrshire in Punjabi, Urdu, Cantonese and Mandarin.

After presenting the certificates Councillor McIntosh said:  “I would like to congratulate the 32 food handlers from 16 businesses throughout South Ayrshire who all successfully completed the course.

“The same strict rules applied on this course as on any other food handling course.  The only difference was that the course instructors delivered their lessons in languages other than English.

“It is very important that everyone, whether at home or in a business environment maintains high standards of hygiene.  Food poisoning can have terrible consequences particularly for very young children and older people.”

The Elementary Food Hygiene course is a seven hour course covering 23 areas specific to food hygiene with the main subjects being:

• Food hygiene and personal hygiene.
• Food poisoning and food-borne disease.
• Food contamination.
• Prevention of food poisoning.
• Storage and preparation of food.
• Construction and design of food premises.
• Pest control.
• Cleaning and disinfection.
• The law relating to food and food hygiene.

Anyone who would like further information about food hygiene matters, or information on future courses, should contact Environmental Health staff on telephone number 01292 618222 or e-mail environmental.health@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

Councillor Bill McIntosh is pictured after the presentation ceremony with people who successfully completed the Food Hygiene Training course and Environmental Health staff.

May 2006