Food safety training grants announced

Thursday 8 September 2005

The Food Standards Agency has announced grants totalling £5.5m to local authorities in England for training caterers in food safety.

These grants come as a result of new European Union regulations, which aim to improve consumer protection and make it easier for caterers to implement hygiene rules.

The money will help catering businesses implement 'Safer food, better business' (SFBB), the FSA's new simplified approach to understanding how to manage food safety and reduce levels of food poisoning in relation to when people eat out. The FSA has developed SFBB to help catering businesses, particularly smaller ones, comply with new European food safety legislation that comes into effect in January 2006.

In this first tranche of awards,
5.5m has been awarded to 158 local authorities over 2005/6 and 2006/7. Some grant awards have been made to individual local authorities. Some have been made to joint bids from local authorities working together, sometimes in collaboration with trade bodies or training organisations.

David Statham, the Agency's Director of Enforcement, made the announcement at the annual conference of the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health.

Mr Statham said: 'These awards are part of a rolling programme to assist local authorities to provide information that food businesses will need to comply with the new EU hygiene regulations and to make sure food sold to people when they eat out is as safe as possible.

'We have developed the 'Safer food, better business' pack to make the transition to the new rules simple and free of red tape.

'I'm particularly pleased to see such a significant number of joint bids involving local authorities working together. It's also heartening to see other organisations, including trade associations and training bodies, joining forces with their local authorities to offer their expertise in delivering real benefits to their local community.'

At least another
4.5m in grants will be available to be spent on more training and support for caterers over the next three years. The second tranche of awards to local authorities, to be made from current applications, will be announced in the new year.

There are similar schemes already operating in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.