Food safety inspections

Our Environmental Health Section carries out regular checks on all food premises in the district to ensure the public is protected and that high standards are maintained.

Visits to premises are carried out, as far as possible, without prior notification and are priority programmed according to the degree of potential risk. This ensures that higher risk premises are visited more frequently than those in lower risk categories.

An alternative enforcement strategy is also implemented for low risk food premises. Low risk premises will be sent a questionnaire to complete and return.

Premises which fail to complete and return their questionnaires may be targeted for inspection.

Upon receipt of the questionnaires the answers will be examined and if there appears to be any problems or the scale of the business has increased an Environmental Health Officer (Food) will contact the business and where necessary carry out an inspection.

During an inspection, officers will want to assess whether potential food safety risks have been identified by the business and that there are adequate controls in place to prevent any problems.

They will also look at the training of managers and food handlers to ensure that it is suitable and they will check that the condition of the premises and equipment is satisfactory.

Where practices or conditions are not satisfactory, every attempt will be made to resolve the situation by informal means, but where poor conditions persist, or where there is a risk to public health it may be necessary to resort to formal action. This could involve either the service of legal notice or in extreme cases closure of the business and/or prosecution.

For further information contact Environmental Health on 01746 713150 or email: health@bridgnorth-dc.gov.uk