Good practice in the North West…

Local authorities in the North West of England got together in June for an update on the success, so far, of the Safer Food Better Business (SFBB) project in the region and to share ideas about the future of the initiative. 

Food Northwest have managed a large SFBB project in the region on behalf of a number of local authorities and worked in partnership with the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) North West Regional Office and the Food Safety Management Implementation Branch to host the event in Wigan, on 19 June.   

More than 70 environmental health professionals from across the region attended, with news and views about their different approaches to delivering the initiative, including useful tips that had emerged from individual schemes. These have included using external consultants to deliver the work as well as building in-house capacity to sustain the project in the future. The relative benefits of group and one-to-onetraining sessions with business were also discussed, as were ways in which training can be delivered to business employees whose first language is not English.  

All the different approaches had real benefits and it was clear that the success of SFBB to date has been as a result of local authorities taking a flexible approach to delivery and assessing what would work best in their area with their own unique mix of businesses. Those local authorities in the North West involved in SFBB have found the scheme an extremely useful tool in helping businesses improve their food safety management systems. 

Julian Blackburn, Head of the FSA’s Food Safety Management Implementation Branch said: ‘I was extremely impressed by the enthusiasm for SFBB among environmental health colleagues in the North West and the evident success of the programme to date in the region. We will continue to work closely with them in the future to promote SFBB.’ 

Delegates also heard from a food business where staff – although originally sceptical – had now embraced the scheme wholeheartedly and were actively promoting it to colleagues in other food businesses as an efficient business management tool. Prior to using SFBB, they had been using nine separate systems for food safety monitoring and management. Now the SFBB pack meets all of those requirements.  

There was a high level of commitment from delegates for the continuation of SFBB despite the absence of any new major funding from the FSA. Many had already incorporated ongoing SFBB promotion to businesses in their core activity, and others saw useful links between ‘Scores on the doors’ and SFBB in encouraging better standards of food safety management in food businesses. 

This October, the Food Standards Agency will be launching an interactive DVD as the latest element of the Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) programme. The DVD, will be an invaluable training tool for local authorities and food businesses and has been designed to be used by both caterers and retailers, alongside the SFBB pack most relevant to their business.  

It helps managers put the pack into practice in their business and train staff in key areas. Using the DVD could replace the need for coaching in some businesses, or reduce the amount of coaching needed, thus helping to sustain the SFBB programme. This product will be especially useful in training people who don’t understand very much English, or have low literacy levels. It uses virtually no text and the video content has voiceovers in 16 languages that are common in small catering and retail businesses. 

For more information about SFBB visit the FSA website www.food.gov.uk and for general comments and enquiries about SFBB please email the dedicated mailbox at haccpteam@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk