Health and Safely Guidelines

The Sourdough School Health and Safety Officer is Vanessa Kimbell

This written health and safety policy describes the arrangements in place at The Sourdough School. As we feed people on a regular basis, we are registered with the local council. There are many laws and regulations concerning the preparation and serving of foods. The Food Safety Act 1990, and subsequent regulations, cover all the operations involved in selling, possessing for sale, delivering, preparing, labelling, storing, importing and exporting food.

However, the Act does not cover food prepared in the home for domestic purposes, and it is generally accepted that producing food for tutoring is considered personal or for home consumption and is therefore exempt.

That said, Vanessa‘s professional training means she feels the standards we use still comply with professional food standards; we have therefore shared our procedures for transparency.

Health and safety policy

• Everyone involved in the delivery of lessons at the School is legally required to adhere to our health and safety policy. They should additionally refer to any specific safety policies applying to their subject area. These will be added  to The School policy if necessary. A copy of this policy is made available to everyone at The School.
• The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 impose general duties on employers to ensure the health and safety of employees and others. In addition, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 give rise to specific requirements in relation to standards for hygiene and cleanliness in areas where food is prepared and eaten.
• We have looked closely at what we do in our business and assessed anything that could go wrong and what risks there are to food safety,
• We have identified critical control points to ensure those risks are removed or reduced to safe levels.
• If something does go wrong we will investigate to make sure the correct procedures are being followed and are working.  We keep records to show our procedures are working as they should.

We have considered the following in our policy:

• the safe storage, handling, preparation and serving of food
• food preparation/serving environment – including accommodation, fixtures/fittings, flooring, surfaces, windows, ventilation etc
• cleaning routines
• hygiene and infection control
• staff training
• equipment safety
• control of hazardous substances
• gas/electrical safety
• fire safety
• student supervision
• first aid
• emergency procedures

Managing risks and risk assessment at work

1. As a registered business, local authority officers have the right to visit The Sourdough School to conduct a food hygiene inspection. This inspection assesses whether food preparation areas and food safety procedures are suitable for running a food business. Our last hygiene rating was 5*.
2. Provision and Use of Equipment Regulations 1992 place a duty on employers to ensure work equipment is appropriate for its intended use, safe and adequately maintained. A number of items of equipment used in The School kitchen areas pose potential risks to students and team members so we have supply the appropriate information about those risks and provide training from the outset.
3. We do not use pressure cookers (they are subject to specific regulations).
4. We comply with The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, which require employers to notify the Health and Safety Executive immediately in the event of an accident resulting in death, major injury or injury causing absence from work for more than seven days.
5. Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, gas appliances we can confirm that the gas oven was properly installed by an engineer on the Gas Safe Register, and fully serviced by a Gas Safe registered engineer.
6. The oven is sited where there is adequate ventilation.
7. We comply with The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 for the safe installation and maintenance of electrical equipment to prevent risk of electric shock, burn or fire/explosion from electricity.
8. We do not have microwave ovens.
9. We comply with the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 and provide adequate first aid arrangements in the workplace.
10. We have addressed risks through risk assessments and suitable control measures to comply with The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 which cover all manual handling operations which may cause injury in the workplace.
11. We are confident our tidiness procedures keep The School a clutter-free space.
12. We feel that the processes used to control risks in your workplaces are satisfactory. For the most part we are a small, low-risk businesses and the steps we take are straightforward. Nevertheless, we have carried out a substantial risk assessment looking at who might be harmed and how, and we have mitigated the risks. As we are required by law to protect your employees, and others, from harm. Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 we have identified the following as a risk to injury.

The Ovens

The bread oven – when putting bread in or taking the bread out: We use a bread paddle to prevent touching the oven, and we have oven gloves.

The gas hob – we turn the electric off, and we have. policy of only one student at the oven at any one time.

We have a first aid kit, and a St John Ambulance-trained member of the team on the course. With any minor burns we follow St John Ambulance procedures and start cooling the burn or scald as quickly as possible. Hold it under cool running water for at least 20 minutes or until the pain feels better.

Knives

We do not allow students to slice bread, and we give training on how to slice bread safely.

Scoring bread – this is a closely supervised activity.  The lames are bright plastic colours, and students are carefully supervised, with Vanessa personally supervising each loaf being scored.  Students are asked to only step forward one at a time, to score.

We have a fully stocked first aid kit that is located by the door in The School. It is checked regularly and all necessary items are restocked..  If anyone cuts themselves we follow the St John Ambulance Procedures

Trips Hazards

We have a very strict policy that students are made aware of before they attend of no personal belonging in The Sourdough School Classroom.

Fire hazards

A s part of the application process, students agree to follow our health and safety procedures; we brief them as they arrive, including the procedure for leaving the building and gathering at the muster point outside in the event of a fire.

We have an in-date fire extinguisher in the school that are easily accessible.

Our policy is to allow only one student at a time  to load the wood-fired ovens outside; firewood is stored away from the ovens. The correct equipment is on hand, including oven gloves.

Personal Hygiene, clothing’s, hair, shoes, and nails.

Students and the team always wear a clean apron and closed shoes and are requested to tie hair back when preparing food. We also have a policy of no jewellery other than a wedding ring in The School

HACCP-based Food Safety Management System

1. We follow the Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) advice to avoid cross-contamination
2. We have separate sinks in for hand washing
3. The Loo is upstairs
4. The cleaning is fastidious with our housekeeper cleaning all areas pre and post students and we clean throughout the day.
5. We have an outdoor sink for hand washing if students have been in the garden.
6. We are a meat free environment
7. We keep track of the dates on all foods, with regular checks of the fridge and the pantry
8. We comply with all food hygiene regulations, and Vanessa is a fully time served chef, who has worked in professional food environments, so she applies all the rigorous food hygiene protocols of a professional kitchen to the domestic system, including separate fridges.
9. We have fridge thermometers to ensure food safely
10. We are fastidious about microbiological hazards involving harmful bacteria, and more aware than most of protocols for food safely.
11. We avoid chemical contamination by not having any chemicals that are harmful on premise
12. We have bright physical colours for any potential object that might accidently get into food
13. We have the highest food hygiene rating score possible

Cleaning materials.

We comply with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations. we have carried out an assessment of all substances hazardous to health, removed any that are hazardous, and replaced with products that do not pose a risk, considering detergents, disinfectants and cleaning materials. We have an organic policy and try to use the gentlest cleaning ingredients possible, such as our own fermented vinegars.  Bleach is under the sinks with safety caps on and we have no reason to ask students to clean, other than using washing up liquid, or a vinegar spray. We follow the advice in the Safer Food Better Business Guide.

We also provide gloves for cleaning.

Food hygiene

Good food hygiene is essential to make sure that the all the food we serve is safe to eat. we have fastidious ways of working that that will help you ensure hygiene standards are right from the start.

Fridge temperature

Cold food is be kept at 5?C or below (below 8C is a legal requirement in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We check regularly to ensure that the lunch fridge is cold enough.

We stay up to date with good hygiene training and we are certain that we can demonstrate the highest standards of food preparation, handling, storage and serving.

It is not compulsory to have a food hygiene certificate, vanessa has food hygiene qualifications.

Allergen management

We have a strict health and safety procedure, of identifying allergies before a student arrives, and interviewing them as well as checking with them when they introduce themselves to make sure all students know that they have an allergy.  We also ask they make us aware of any medication and we have their emergency contact details in their student registration documents.

Nut allergies

If someone has an allergy to nuts, we make them aware that we are NOT a nut free environment.  However, we also reduce risk by removing any nut recipes from the course that week and replace with another ingredient.

All of our lunch recipes are fully detailed, photographed and shared on the  symbiotic recipes pages

All businesses are required by law to provide allergen information and follow labelling rules.

As the law says that we must provide allergen information to your customers

handle and manage food allergens effectively in food preparation

In order to let our students know any food we prepare contains any of the 14 allergens  as we serve cereals containing gluten including  wheat, barley and oats.  We provide recipes before students attend, to make them aware of any  crustaceans such as prawns, crabs and lobsters eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs such as mussels and oysters, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites (if the sulphur dioxide and sulphites are at a concentration of more than ten parts per million) and tree nuts (such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts).that are required to be declared as allergens by food law we provide the detailed recipes that students eat for lunch and request that they check for allergens as well as informing us of any allergies.

Awareness

Vanessa oversees food allergies – and any change to the recipes or final product, such as spices or herbs are made clear as we all prepare food as part of the course

Cross contamination policy

We clean utensils thoroughly before each use

We regularly washing hands thoroughly

We store ingredients and prepared foods separately

We label clearly

We make the recipes clearly visible explaining how students can obtain the information about the meals that we make and how we serve lunches.

Traceability

Traceability rules help keep track of food in the supply chain, so we keep records of all the suppliers that provide us with food or any food ingredients. All our records are kept up-to-date and always be available for inspections

Avoiding food crime

When sourcing ingredients, only purchase food from reputable suppliers and usually local organic producers, so we are fully aware of where the food has come from.

School visits and field trips

The quality of any food consumed on visits form part of the risk assessment carried out for all aspects of the trip. Although food which is commercially prepared and sold, eg in restaurants, cafés, hotels, etc could reasonably be assumed that adult students can identify food they can eat whilst out, on a trip.