Pennington

Food poison expert backs licences for all catering

Food-poisoning expert professor Hugh Pennington has backed Government proposals for the licensing of all catering outlets.

"The logic is inescap-able," said Pennington, who headed the inquiry into the E coli 0157 outbreak in Scotland which killed 16 people in 1996.

His inquiry group recommended licensing for butchers' shops, saying existing systems were inadequate to tackle the problems of food hygiene.

Pennington said he backed licensing for caterers for the same reasons. Like butchers' shops, most handled both raw and cooked meat, presenting a risk of cross-contamination.

Licences could be granted to premises that showed they had adequate hazard analysis systems in place, he added.