Food hygiene guide will meet deadline

The Joint Hospitality Industry Congress's (JHIC) guide to compliance with the new food hygiene regulations is in the final stages of approval and is on schedule to be published when the regulations become law in September.

The guide, which has been in consultation since February, has now gone to the Department of Health (DoH) and is expected to be officially recognised with few changes.

Phil Phillips, general secretary of the British Hospitality Association and JHIC member, told Caterer the main changes made to the guide during consultation were that it was now less prescriptive about training for food handlers. For example, where the draft said managers had to be trained in the safe handling of food, the final version recommends that managers may need to be trained but that it should be commensurate with the risk.

David Edwards of the Food Hygiene Bureau welcomed the imminent publication of the guide and said every caterer would want to have a copy of it. "The DoH is trying to play down the new regulations, but this is a big burden for caterers. The majority of operators are not prepared for it," he said.