CPD - Food Hygiene Courses

If you work in the food industry, then a high standard of hygiene is an essential requirement. Whether you are a manufacturer, distributor or consumer, acquiring some basic knowledge around food hygiene is crucial for people's health and wellbeing. This CPD article will explain the importance of food hygiene and safety, including key principles, as well as outline why it can be beneficial to take a food hygiene course.

What is food hygiene?

Food hygiene, also known as food safety, refers to all essential practices that businesses must follow when processing, preparing, handling, storing and distributing food. Food hygiene principles and measures are put in place to prevent people getting ill from contamination of food and causing food poisoning. 

What is the importance of food hygiene?

There has become an ever-increasing awareness of food safety by the general public and news reporting on food recalls and outbreaks. According to the Food Standards Agency, there are 2.4 million cases of foodborne illness per year in the UK.

Poor hygiene can lead to the spread of foodborne illness that can be caused by a number of different factors, including bacteria, viruses, and toxins. This means that food hygiene is important at home as well as in restaurants, retail or food factories.

Lack of proper hand washing accounts for 33% of all related food poisoning cases. It is therefore important to maintain and ensure good personal hygiene practice. Food safety is a critical issue for businesses. When working with, or around food, there are many potential risks involved, and through developing good hygiene practices within a workplace, these can be significantly reduced. If food isn't handled properly, it can be costly and damaging to a business' reputation.

It is vital you understand your responsibilities in regards to the law when working with food. All organisations must comply with legislation and organisations are regularly inspected to ensure they are complying with the law. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) works closely with Local Authority (LA) Food Safety Officers to ensure businesses comply with food law throughout the food chain.

What are the food safety principles?

Whilst it may seem simple at first, there are in actual fact some food safety principles to be learnt that can help avoid common problems such as food poisoning and cross contamination. This is important both for personal food preparation and especially if you are involved in food safety in a professional environment.

Cleaning & Sanitising: A fundamental aspect of food safety is ensuring effective cleaning and sanitising. 

Personal Hygiene: In order to eliminate cross-contamination, hand washing and clean hands awareness are critical to food safety.

Food Storage: Proper storage of different categories of food. Always separate perishable foods and dry goods.

Temperature Control: Preventing the growth of bacteria and ensuring the quality of food is maintained. 

Food Handling: Food Handling carries the greatest risk when dealing with cross-contamination. Therefore, how food is handled during storage and preparation is essential.

Why take a food hygiene CPD course?

In the UK, food handlers don't have to hold a food hygiene certificate to prepare or sell food. However, food business operators must ensure that food handlers receive the appropriate supervision and training in food hygiene. This is vital as it ensures that both staff and customers are kept safe.

Without effective training the risk of food becoming contaminated is dramatically increased, which can put the health and wellbeing of consumers at risk. Training is especially relevant (in fact, it’s a legal requirement for anyone who handles food in production, preparation or sale), and those working in the Hospitality, Food Manufacturing, and Retail sectors.

Food safety training is an effective tool to grow knowledge on food hygiene and health and safety duties in the kitchen and demonstrates compliance with the law. Receiving proper training ensures that staff within a business understand best practices and procedures in order to effectively meet their duties. The level of training required is based upon the activities and responsibilities of each individual.

Food handlers are expected to maintain a high level of food safety knowledge and ensure that this is kept up to date. A formally accredited CPD course in food safety can offer individuals with valuable training opportunities to broaden their abilities and learn relevant practices in their industry.

Can I take a food hygiene course online?

It is now entirely possible to undertake a food hygiene course online. This could be provided by a relevant college, be organised through your workplace, or even available as part of wider Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

Online courses are an increasingly popular way to learn and offer greater flexibility, as individuals can study in their own time and pace, or fit learning around their existing work schedules. Therefore, online courses are often the most convenient and practical way for us to keep knowledge up to date and allow individuals to develop without having to forgo any important training due to prior commitments.

What are the different food and hygiene CPD courses available?

Recognising the importance of good food hygiene, there is an ever-growing amount of relevant CPD courses, training and learning options available to suit all development needs and requirements. Common courses topics can cover many different aspects of food hygiene, including safe storage, methods to prevent cross-contamination, food poisoning and allergic reactions, law and regulations.

Within the CPD Courses Catalogue, there are a wide number of training courses, events, e-learning programs, conferences, workshops and seminars hosted on behalf of our accredited members.  All the certified training has been reviewed and recognised as meeting the required industry standards and benchmarks.

We hope this article was helpful. Established in 1996, The CPD Certification Service is the world’s leading and largest CPD accreditation organisation working across all industry sectors. If you provide training courses and events that may be suitable for Continuing Professional Development, please contact our team to discuss in more detail.

Alternatively, if you are looking for a free online CPD record tool to help manage, track and log your ongoing learning, as well as store your personal training records and attendance certificates in one simple place, please visit the myCPD Portal page.