Global Hygiene Study

The results of the Global Hygiene Study, (conducted by Hygiene Audit Systems with Tonic Life Communications on behalf of the Hygiene Council), were revealed last week. I was interviewed by over 15 radio stations on the results and implications. Contrary to what the householders thought, the dirtiest item in the study of UK homes was the kitchen cloth, followed by the kitchen tap (probably wiped with the dirty kitchen cloth!) Only 15% of households in the survey disinfected their cloths, which could explain why 85% of the cloths tested failed! Interestingly in the UK 90% of respondents said that they would change their habits in the home if the study’s finding suggested they should. This is great news – hopefully householders will take the messages about cleaning cloths on board and change their habits, switching to disposable cloths or ensuring the kitchen cloth is changed or laundered more frequently – and at a high enough temperature to kill bacteria. Most householders thought that the dirtiest site in the home would be the toilet flush handle. This shows that we need to get the focus of disinfection into the kitchen, where the cloth could be spreading harmful bacteria on to food and hand-contact surfaces.

In the food industry the cloth is of course also a vector of disease of course, and I am sure a similar survey would uncover equally alarming results, and indeed Watchdog and Rogue Restaurants have found some very grotty specimens!

 Shortly I will be putting up a video demonstrating how bacteria can spread around the kitchen using a dirty cloth – watch this space!

Salad washing and more on dirty cloths

This week we heard about a catering company who ran into trouble after a member of staff failed to correctly dilute the chlorine tablet being used to sanitise salad items. The result? Two customers were admitted to A&E with nasty burns to the mouth and throat. This highlights the need for extreme vigilance when using chlorine as a means of washing and sanitising fruit and veg. It also demonstrates the wisdom of those choosing to change produce washing methods to non-toxic alternatives such as Fit wash. For too long, chlorine has been the only choice of produce wash for the food industry – and has been responsible for many complaints and accidents. Fit wash offers a better, safer, equally-priced alternative which actually cleans where chlorine doesn’t. I think it could soon be replacing chlorine as the new industry standard. Between 1992 and 2007 there have been 120 outbreaks of food poisoning associated with salads and vegetables, and yet it seems crazy that the way in which we try to avoid further outbreaks, is by washing our food in a potentially harmful chemical!

The Food Standards Agency has recently published another important document: ‘Annual report of Incidents 2008’

The Food Standards Agency has recently published another important document: ‘Annual report of Incidents 2008’. An incident is defined as:

‘any event where, based on the information available, there are concerns about actual or suspected threats to the safety or quality of food that could require intervention to protect consumers’ interests.’

The FSA investigated 1298 incidents in the UK in 2008. Fourteen were classified as high level incidents (severe incidents with the potential to cause serious illness or death). These included:
• Melamime in dairy products from China
• Dioxins in Irish pork
• Aflatoxin contamination of figs
• Salmonella agona outbreak

Further information on these incidents is given in the document.

The FSA issued 149 food alerts in 2008 and 59 of these were allergy alerts. These alerts provide advice to both consumers and enforcement officers on what they need to do in the event of a food incident.

There is an online incident report form that businesses can use to quickly submit information on suspected food incidents and the products affected. This can be found at
www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/regulation/foodfeedform

The FSA launched a new incidents section on their website which can be found within the ‘Food Industries’ section. This provides information on incident response and prevention.

This document provides details of how incidents are classified and managed and gives lots of detail on the incidents that occurred in 2008. It is well worth a read and can be found on our website under research or at: http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2009/may/incidents

The Food Standards Agency has just published an important document

The Food Standards Agency has just published an important document, ‘Food Handlers: Fitness to Work – A Practical Guide for Food Business Operators’. This guide has been produced for food businesses to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases through food. This FSA publication updates and replaces the 1995 Department of Health guidance. For the first time, the guidance applies to all UK food business operators except primary producers (e.g. farmers and growers).

Diarrhoea and vomiting can be easily transmitted through food and therefore staff with these symptoms must report it to their managers immediately. Managers should then exclude these staff from working with or around open food for 48 hours from when symptoms stop naturally. In effect this means that if a staff member has diarrhoea, they will need to wait 48 hours after the diarrhoea stops or if they are taking diarrhoea prevention tablets to ease the symptoms they would need to wait 48 hours after treatment has stopped.

There are some cases where different action is required, for example if a food handler has been diagnosed with Salmonella typhi, Verocytotoxin producing E.coli, Norovirus, Hepatitis A, Skin infections/sores, Amoebic Dysentery, Shigella, worms or Vibrio cholerae 01 and 0139. In these cases you should refer to the guidance for information on what to do.

The guidance also discusses circumstances when exclusion may not be needed for example when someone is suffering morning sickness through pregnancy, has a hangover or a non infective illness that can cause sickness and diarrhoea such as chrohns disease. However if there is any doubt as to cause then it is best to exclude the person.

The guidance also requires that all staff who handle food and who work around open food must always:
• wash and dry their hands before handling food, or surfaces likely to come into contact with food, especially after going to the toilet.

Everyone working in a food handling area must maintain a high degree of personal cleanliness. Hand washing is an essential part of this. Hands can easily pass bacteria and viruses around the kitchen if they are not washed thoroughly with soap and hot water. Drying hands safely, preferably using paper towels is also essential. The guidance provides advice on the use of hand gels which will only work on clean hands so should only be used in conjunction with hand washing as opposed to being an alternative. It also discusses issues with the gels such as dermatitis and their limitations such as being ineffective against norovirus. My advice would be to ensure that staff are taught the basics of hand washing, use a good antibacterial soap, hot water and spend time to make sure that the hands are cleaned properly. Don’t forget the backs of hands, between the fingers and under nails! To help protect against dermatitis, hand cream can be used. There are now products on the market incorporating silver ions, which could help further reduce build up of bacteria on the hands.

The guide discusses the use of hand swabs to assess the level of bacterial contamination – I would recommend the use of swabs for assessing the effectiveness of a food handler’s hand washing regime – you would be surprised by some of the results. Hygiene Audit Systems has swabbing kits available on the website.

This guidance is not legally binding and individual businesses can decide whether they want to use it but I would strongly recommend that businesses do follow this advice to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases through food, to comply with the legal requirements of Annex II, Chapter VIII of Regulation (EC) 852/2004 and to help with due diligence if an outbreak ever occurred.

See my previous blog on the use of Glow in the Dark powder and UV torches to demonstrate how bacteria and viruses can be transmitted from dirty hands.

The document can be found on our research pages and on the FSA’s website http://www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/guidancenotes/hygguid/foodhandlersguide