Food Standards Agency recognises local food hygiene schemes

Friday 21 March 2003

The Food Standards Agency has awarded ten local authorities £10,000 each to support their food hygiene initiatives. The awards are being made after the FSA invited local authorities to come up with ideas of how to get key food hygiene messages across to their local communities

Some of the successful schemes aim to improve hygiene education within local schools where the awarded money will be used to produce teaching packs, CDs, videos and hygiene testing kits.

Other winning applications focus on improving training and support for caterers on food hygiene issues.

The cash awards are part of the Agency's 'Food Hygiene Campaign' which was launched in February 2002 and aims to reduce foodborne illness by 20% by 2006.

The television, radio and print advertising campaign highlights four important food hygiene messages:

• Always wash your hands and keep them clean
• Avoid cross contamination of foods
• Chill food properly
• Cook food properly

After receiving seventy applications for the grants, a panel assessed the schemes against criteria which included innovation, partnership, excellence and evaluation arrangements.

The successful local authorities are:

• Blackburn with Darwen District Council
• Bolton Metro Borough Council
• Bradford Metropolitan District Council
• Cherwell District Council
• Colchester Borough Council
• East Riding of Yorkshire Council
• North Norfolk District Council
• St. Albans City and District Council
• Tees Valley Food Safety Liaison Group
• Wyre Borough Council

John Barnes, of the Agency' Local Authority Enforcement Division at the FSA, said: 'We know Local Authorities have been working hard to support the messages of our Food Hygiene Campaign and we wanted to work more closely with them to reach local communities and local groups.

'The response to this initiative and the quality of the applications received has been incredible and shows the commitment that exists amongst local authorities to improve food hygiene standards. I

'It was a very difficult task to pick the ten schemes to support and I would like to congratulate the successful applicants.'

Notes to Editors:

John Barnes is available for interviews. Please contact Sarah Read on 020 7276 8809

The assessment panel judges included:
John Barnes, FSA Local Authority Enforcement Division (LAED)
James Brandon, FSA Head of Publicity
Mark Du Val, Assistant Director (LACORS),
Jenny Morris, Food Policy Officer (CIEH),
Yvonne Robinson, FSA Audit Branch (LAED)
Sharon Young, FSA (LAED).

The invitation was sent out to local authorities in December 2002.

One hundred and twenty two application packs were sent out of which seventy applications were received by the closing date of 14th February.

Seventy-five percent of the grant will be paid to the successful applicants this financial year with the remainder of the grant being paid when the FSA receives the LA's evaluation reports early in 2004.

The FSA's Food Hygiene Campaign was launched in February 2002.

It is a five year campaign which aims to reduce the spread of foodborne illness by 20% by 2006.

The first phase concentrated on tackling inadequate hygiene standards in catering businesses across the UK after the 2001 FSA Consumer Attitudes to Food Survey revealed that 5.5 million people said that they had suffered from food poisoning in the last year and that almost three-quarters of them (approx. 4.2 million people) believed that their foodborne illness was caused by food prepared out of the home.

The second phase focussed on small to medium-sized catering businesses in a drive to push up food hygiene standards in restaurants, cafes, take aways, snack bars, pubs, B&Bs and hotel kitchens. A free and practical training video was sent out to over 300,000 catering businesses around the UK with food safety information.

For more information on Food Hygiene visit the FSA website www.food.gov.uk Information specifically for catering businesses is available on the dedicated campaign microsite at www.food.gov.uk/cleanup

The Food Standards Agency was created by an act of Parliament in April 2000. Offices are in London, Aberdeen, Cardiff and Belfast.