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FOOD HYGIENE
All food shops and catering premises in the Borough have been
visited frequently throughout the year.
The number of restaurants continues to increase and in nearly all
cases the prospective owners have sought and accepted the advice of the
Public Health Inspectors concerned before commencing to plan the kitchens &c.
The standard of kitchen equipment is improving steadily, and it has been
found that the majority of the owners of catering premises have modernised
the kitchens in a co-operative manner, and have, on occasions, improved
the lay-out and facilities to a degree far in excess of that stipulated in
the Food Hygiene Regulations.
Considerable time is spent discussing food and
health education with kitchen staffs, in an endeavour to make them realise
the importance of their work and the part they play in the preparation of
clean, safe food. It has been found from experience that careless,
unhygienic practices and bacteria, and that even the most modern kitchen
appliances are useless if the staff fail to keep themselves and their
equipment in a clean and hygienic conditiono
Difficulty has been experienced during recent years with regard
to bacterial contamination of loose ice-cream served in restaurants, and
many managements have been persuaded to change over to wrapped varieties,
i.e., either wrapped "family" blocks, or even wrapped individual portions,.
With regard to food shops, the trend towards self-service continues.
It has been noted with interest that an increasing number of manufacturers
are producing sweets and confectionery either individually wrapped or in
packets, and it is not uncommon to find that some sweet-shops have no
unwrapped sweets whatsoever* This is very satisfactory from the food hygiene
point of view as the risk of contamination is considerably reduced.
As with restaurants, a large amount of the time spent on each visit
to food shops is now taken up with instructions in clean food handling and
cleansing of the premises„ There is a very common tendency for the shop
itself to look smart and inviting while the store-rooms and staff accommodation
may often be dirty and neglected, and the singes and wash-basins either mis-used
or so placed that they cannot be used for the appropriate purpose. Particular
attention is paid to shops where food is pre-packed on the premises, to ensure
that it is not contaminated before or during packing, and that staffs have
adequate washing facilities in a convenient position to enable them to wash
their hands after opening tins, packing cases, &c and before handling bulk
food such as butter, cheese, sides of bacon and cooked meats.
Several smaller provision shops closed during the year, as did the
Borough's only ice-cream factory. With the exception of a large Supermarket
and a Danish pastry shop, no new food shops have been opened, and it is
interesting to note that where sites are redeveloped the new shops are rarely
opened as food shops.