The UK is in a food safety crisis, suffering from an alarming backlog of food safety investigations, with a number of restaurants not being visited for inspection since 2021.
In July, an analysis of the Food Standards Agency’s external records showed that 47% of eateries in the South Hams district, 44% in Plymouth and nearly 20% in Cornwall, have had no inspection in three years. In Bristol, one in ten food businesses have not been inspected in over two years, with 226 not being inspected by the FSA since 2022.
BBC data has demonstrated that 19% of inspected food businesses in the United Kingdom have failed to have a follow-up hygiene inspection since 2021. With the recent E.coli outbreaks that led to 120 hospitalisations, local councils must propose a resolution to the backlog. One being the integration of process management platforms which provide the real-time data necessary to analyse and inspect compliance remotely.
Matt Smith, Director of Customer Operations at mpro5, said:
“To reduce the associated risks of lapses in food safety, businesses in the food/hospitality sector must ensure they uphold the highest quality possible of records. This includes the recording of fridge temperatures every 4 hours to ensure food is stored at the optimum temperature. With the right process management platform, food safety inspectors can remotely check if establishments are imputing temperatures correctly, which are timestamped to enforce compliance and avoid forged recordings.”
The backlog of food hygiene inspections poses a serious risk to public health, with local councils unable to be certain whether catering establishments are following food safety regulations. Following the climax of the COVID-19 pandemic over a year ago, regional councils must remain vigilant in their inspections and benefit, wherever possible, from establishments that have adopted process management platforms.
“The food industry is a notoriously fast-paced environment where it is not uncommon for employees to forget to manually log temperature and safety records, despite regular checks,” added Smith. With a digital process management platform, inspectors can determine remotely when temperatures are added and if safety checks are completed correctly. Businesses have an hour to log the fridge temperatures before non-compliance is flagged.”
“Process management platforms are necessary for any food service business in the UK, and governing bodies must do more to encourage their implementation. Such platforms ensure fridge temperatures and hot counters are logged efficiently, enabling inspectors to inspect remotely, allowing the UK to combat its food safety inspection woes.”
