Is the food industry really all about confidence?
Comments on the 'Rogue Restaurants' series (BBC1)
Anyone who managed to catch BBC1's recent 'Rogue Restaurants' series will have witnessed a healthy serving of shock gasp moments (20million E.coli bacteria on a kitchen cloth in one pub) mixed up with the predictable and hammed-up pseudo investigative journalist meets people champion patter along the lines of the previous incarnations of the Rogue trader series.
Clearly the purpose and vested interest of this site is to sell a Food Safety Management System, but what is scary is how many times the basics are not in place, not of a Safe Food System, but just sheer essential basics.
These must have been real bad places mustn’t they? Pardoning the various attempts at food based puns in the above, what the series did expose was the serious flaws in knowledge and worse, that actually they didn't have to look hard at all, to find widespread bad practice when it comes to getting the real basics of safe production right, and I mean real basics.
So horror stories or horror facts? In our time advising businesses on food production we have seen pretty much the whole weird and wonderful gambit of food production, from shocking negligence, to the strangest wilful deliberate introduction of foreign bodies into food (use you imagination and you won't be far out).
But is what really underpins a good profitable food business actually not a great product or clean floors, but 'confidence?' It seems so reflecting on this series.
People having confidence in you not to harm them, you’re local EHO Environmental Health Officer having confidence in you and your practices. How about your bank manager having confidence in you to do produce good attractive and safe food, and how about you as the owner having complete confidence your staff are doing the right thing all of the time. Still 100% confident?
On holiday recently in Cornwall we visited a thriving takeaway in real backwater with a population of less than 1000. Even a relatively minor food poisoning outbreak would probably kill the business off in one go in such a small and connected community right? The truth about food businesses in much larger locations is surprisingly similar. Even in major cities, most restaurants, takeaways and particularly sandwich shops tend to serve a surprisingly small number of repeat customers, where confidence in you is paramount to viability and profitability.
Programmes like Rogue Restaurants should if nothing else seek to remind you that the food business is a confidence business, and as an industry we still have yet to clean up our act when it comes to food production. With almost 50% of food businesses visited by EHOs each year failing standards and incurring notices and even closures, even if you respect your income more than your customer’s safety, you should still be looking at your systems with a view to compliance with the recent law changes on safe food.
That or you just might see the black van of Rogue Traders sitting outside your premises, apparently bristling with enough high-tech equipment to sniff out a million or two E.coli bugs, all the way from the pavement…
Anyone who managed to catch BBC1's recent 'Rogue Restaurants' series will have witnessed a healthy serving of shock gasp moments (20million E.coli bacteria on a kitchen cloth in one pub) mixed up with the predictable and hammed-up pseudo investigative journalist meets people champion patter along the lines of the previous incarnations of the Rogue trader series.
Clearly the purpose and vested interest of this site is to sell a Food Safety Management System, but what is scary is how many times the basics are not in place, not of a Safe Food System, but just sheer essential basics.
These must have been real bad places mustn’t they? Pardoning the various attempts at food based puns in the above, what the series did expose was the serious flaws in knowledge and worse, that actually they didn't have to look hard at all, to find widespread bad practice when it comes to getting the real basics of safe production right, and I mean real basics.
So horror stories or horror facts? In our time advising businesses on food production we have seen pretty much the whole weird and wonderful gambit of food production, from shocking negligence, to the strangest wilful deliberate introduction of foreign bodies into food (use you imagination and you won't be far out).
But is what really underpins a good profitable food business actually not a great product or clean floors, but 'confidence?' It seems so reflecting on this series.
People having confidence in you not to harm them, you’re local EHO Environmental Health Officer having confidence in you and your practices. How about your bank manager having confidence in you to do produce good attractive and safe food, and how about you as the owner having complete confidence your staff are doing the right thing all of the time. Still 100% confident?
On holiday recently in Cornwall we visited a thriving takeaway in real backwater with a population of less than 1000. Even a relatively minor food poisoning outbreak would probably kill the business off in one go in such a small and connected community right? The truth about food businesses in much larger locations is surprisingly similar. Even in major cities, most restaurants, takeaways and particularly sandwich shops tend to serve a surprisingly small number of repeat customers, where confidence in you is paramount to viability and profitability.
Programmes like Rogue Restaurants should if nothing else seek to remind you that the food business is a confidence business, and as an industry we still have yet to clean up our act when it comes to food production. With almost 50% of food businesses visited by EHOs each year failing standards and incurring notices and even closures, even if you respect your income more than your customer’s safety, you should still be looking at your systems with a view to compliance with the recent law changes on safe food.
That or you just might see the black van of Rogue Traders sitting outside your premises, apparently bristling with enough high-tech equipment to sniff out a million or two E.coli bugs, all the way from the pavement…
posted by Marcus at
14:42
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