What does the food team do?
Our officers carry out routine visits to food businesses to check whether they are complying with food hygiene requirements. We also respond to:
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complaints about standards of hygiene at food businesses
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complaints about contaminated, unsound or unsafe food [PDF, 60KB] and
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allegations of food poisoning.
We provide several other services and functions as part of our overall aim to monitor the safety of food which is produced and sold in the district. These include:
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promoting good food hygiene practice and providing training courses
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offering free advice about food safety matters
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closing down unhygienic premises which are a risk to health
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taking formal enforcement action where needed
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carrying out microbiological and chemical sampling of food and water.
We maintain a register of all registered food premises (approximately 1,600) in the district. A copy of the register can be viewed at Pathfinder House in Huntingdon.
Service Plan for Food Law Enforcement
We have a duty to outline how the local authority will fulfil its duty to deliver official food controls within the district to the Food Standards Agency; we do this by producing an annual Service Plan for Food Law Enforcement [PDF, 0.3MB].
The plan details how we will undertake official controls, which include proactive food hygiene inspections, provision of food hygiene ratings, as well as other key areas over the year.
We monitor progress against the plan quarterly: