What food safety is, who this first level of training is for, and why every job around food is part of it.
8 min
Activities: 0 of 1
Every day, people trust that the food they are given will not make them ill. A guest in a hotel restaurant, a child in a school canteen, a patient on a hospital ward and a worker eating in a remote site camp all eat food that other people received, stored, prepared, carried and served. Each of those people can keep the food safe, or make it unsafe.
Food safety means handling, storing, preparing and serving food in ways that stop it from harming the person who eats it. Food hygiene is the set of everyday practices that make food safe: clean hands, clean surfaces, correct temperatures and food kept apart from things that could contaminate it.
Food safety is everyone's job
You may think food safety belongs to the chef. It does not. A kitchen porter who leaves a wet chopping board on top of clean plates, a server who carries a salad with a dirty cloth over the arm, or a driver who leaves chilled food in a hot van can all make food unsafe. None of them cooked the food.
Food passes through many hands on its way to the plate. A problem at any point can harm the person at the end. That is why every person in that chain needs the same basic knowledge.
Where people meet food at work
A kitchen porter never cooks. Does food safety apply to their work?