How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 50

5) HACCP: You must have a food safety management system in place based on Hazard
Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) principles. See our website at
www.howtorunabandb.com for further information, links etc.
All this looks daunting, but most food safety practice comes down to basic principles
such as using safe ingredients, following “use by” dates, storing food at the right
temperature, storing cooked meats on a separate shelf from raw meats (with cooked
meats above), cooking food through properly, and preparing food in clean conditions.
Most competent cooks will have no problems with any of this. The difference when
you run a B&B is that, now you are running a “food business”, you not only have to
follow good practice but also have to be able to demonstrate that you are doing so. This
means recording your policies to show “due diligence” to your EHO.
The key question is: can you demonstrate that your food is safe for anyone who may eat it?
All food businesses, irrespective of their nature and size, must comply with what the
regulations call the “prerequisite requirements” - these include:

Safe handling

Raw materials

Waste

Pest control

Sanitation

Water quality

Cold chain

Potential allergens

Training

Traceability.
As a general rule, the need for HACCP related record keeping should be well balanced
and can be limited to what is essential for food safety. This means that a diary which
shows when things went wrong (and how they were corrected), rather than copious
records of day to day routines, would be all that would be required. The following
guidance is published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA):
Food safety management procedures
You must put in place ‘food safety management procedures’
based on the principles of HACCP (hazard analysis critical
control point). You must also:
• keep these in place permanently
• keep up-to-date documents and records relating to your procedures
• review your procedures if you change what you produce or how you work
In practice, this means that you must have procedures in place
to manage food safety ‘hazards’ in your business. This is similar
to the previous legal requirements, but you must now write
these procedures down, update them as needed and keep
records that can be checked by your local authority.
The regulations are designed to be flexible, so these
procedures can be in proportion to the size of your business
and the type of work you do. This means that many small
businesses will be able to have very simple procedures and
simple records.
How to Start & Run a B&B
www.howtorunabandb.com