Author: Peacock Carter

The REHIS office will be closed today, Friday 2 March, on account of the ongoing extreme winter weather.

Saturday’s meeting of the REHIS Council meeting has been cancelled.

The REHIS office will be closed today, Thursday 1 March, on account of the ongoing severe winter weather affecting, in particular, central Scotland.

Members of the REHIS Council have been advised that Saturday’s meeting of the Council in Edinburgh on Saturday 3 March, may be postponed or cancelled.

Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) have published the Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) analysis of the public bodies’ climate change reports 2016/17.

The report highlights the efforts of 180 public bodies across Scotland in reducing carbon emissions from the public sector last year. The overall 8% reduction in emissions is a result of factors including the direct efforts of public bodies through emission reduction projects and increased use of renewables, and a cleaner electricity grid. These all point to the public sector driving forward action in moving Scotland towards a low carbon society.

The document also details that since 2015/16:

• there has been a 20% increase in carbon savings from implementation of mitigation projects across the sector;
• there has been a 20% increase in reported carbon savings from renewable generation;
• there was a reduction in 6% of waste tonnage going to landfill;
• there was a 2.2% drop in electricity consumption.

In addition, almost 60% of public bodies reported renewable generation – with solar panels featuring prominently, closely followed by biomass generation.

The document is the second of its kind, which details Scotland’s public bodies climate change activities. The report has been produced and published by Keep Scotland Beautiful on behalf of the Scottish Government as part of the charity’s work to support and develop the Sustainable Scotland Network.

The enforcement action preventing Russell Hume from processing and distributing meat products has been lifted at one of their sites after assurances that their food safety management system met the legal requirements were satisfied.

The business will be allowed to resume production and distribution of products to customers but only from their Liverpool site. The other sites cannot restart production until the same assurances are met.

Production and distribution was halted at all Russell Hume sites over two weeks ago until the business could provide assurances they were complying with relevant legislation.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) announced on 1 February that their investigations into the major non-compliances found at the plants was intensifying. The investigation will be looking into all aspects of the business to establish more details about the serious and widespread problems so far identified and will determine whether additional enforcement action should be taken.

The FSA and FSS have worked with the business to address concerns raised by their investigation. As a result, they have been assured that food being produced at the Liverpool site is compliant. FSA staff will remain present during operations.

The lifting of the statutory notice will have no impact on this ongoing investigation and staff for both organisations remain present at sites in England and Scotland.

The FSA and FSS continues to work with the business to assess the status of the measures which remain in place at the other sites preventing production and distribution.

Takeaway order app and website Just Eat has revealed that it removed 35 restaurants from its register last summer for irregularities around food hygiene ratings.

The revelation comes after a BBC Inside Out East investigation that found five takeaways on the app were not registered with the local council. One of the sites was in Basildon, Essex and was visited by the BBC which found that there was no evidence it had been used for anything other than a car wash for at least two years.

Just Eat said the restaurants in question signed up to the platform before 2009 when it introduced a policy to ensure all takeaways had an official hygiene rating.

They also said it carried out a nine-month audit from November 2016, which uncovered the irregularities, ranging from incorrect address details through to not being registered. It said these included those found by the BBC investigation.

A spokesperson said: ‘We removed a total of 35 businesses from our platform during our audit and can confirm that we have proof of registration for every restaurant operating on our platform today.’

‘Whilst it is incredibly rare for us to find an unregistered business on our site, whenever we are made aware of a business which may be operating incorrectly, we immediately take them offline, so that our dedicated restaurant compliance team can investigate.’

The firm has said that it does allow businesses to trade on its website and app with a zero food hygiene rating if it is allowed to trade on the high street by the local council.

Hygiene ratings are not displayed on the Just Eat site or app, although a link to the Food Standards Agency food hygiene ratings directory is included so customers can look up the individual restaurant.

Just Eat food safety manager, Seth Gulliver, said: ‘We take food safety extremely seriously and actively work to raise standards across the takeaway sector.

‘Any restaurant wishing to partner with us must be FSA registered with the relevant local authority, and provide evidence of this, before we put them on our platform.

‘Local authorities are then responsible for carrying out inspections to check businesses meet the requirements of food hygiene law.’

He added that at number of checks are carried out by Just Eat when a business joins its site and app. However, the company relies on businesses self-reporting changes as well as local councils, where good relationships have been built.

Mr Gulliver added: ‘We positively incentivise food safety and make numerous resources available to our restaurant partners to support and improve standards in this area, such as dedicated online training and a partnership with NSF, the leading global Food Safety consultants, offering various packages to our partners including having a qualified auditor coming into their business to help improve standards.’

He said the company was hopeful it will be able to display ratings of restaurants in the near future. However, Just Eat was mindful that this could cause a surge in inspection requests to councils and would be looking at the best way to involve councils in this work.

Just Eat’s website and app have 10 million customers and take orders on behalf of around 28,000 food outlets in the UK, charging customers a 50p service charge each time.

The UK could adopt a Scandinavian deposit-based system for recycling bottles in an effort to reduce levels of unnecessary waste.

Government advisers visited Norway to investigate the country’s industry-led scheme credited with increasing plastic bottle recycling levels to 97 per cent. In the UK, figures show that only around half of all plastic bottles get recycled.

The UK’s waste problem has worsened since the beginning of the year after China stopped accepting foreign waste. In recent years China has taken 500,000 tons of plastic from the UK a year.

The Norwegian method of encouraging recycling is believed to be one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways of tackling plastic waste.

The Norwegian government decided the best method would be to put a tax on every bottle that’s not recycled – then leave the operating details of the scheme up to business.

Consumers pay a small additional charge on each bottle they buy. When the bottle is returned either to the shop or a recycling machine, the deposit is refunded. A charge of 1 Norwegian Kroner (9p) is applied to each standard 500ml bottle, and a 2.5 Kroner deposit (23p) for larger bottles.

Shops are given a small handling fee for taking the returned bottles. Recycling machines, often found in supermarkets, read the barcodes of the bottles and usually offer customers vouchers for the shop, or the option of making a charitable donation. The scheme is partly funded by the unclaimed deposits, and the drinks manufacturers pay the rest.

The deposit-return machine accepts only two types of plastic bottle, with approved labels and even approved glue to fix the labels. This allows the labels to be stripped easily, and simplifies recycling.

Similar schemes are in operation in other Nordic nations, Germany, and some states in the US and Canada. Government advisors are also intrigued by the example of Lithuania, which is said to have achieved a 93% return rate in just three years.

In the UK over 35.8 million bottles are consumed each day, with 16 million of these failing to reach plastic recycling facilities. The UK government’s working party will point at Norway’s method as an example of an effective solution to the problem.

Scotland has already committed to a deposit return scheme, without details so far.

On 1 February, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) announced that they would be undertaking a review of meat cutting premises and cold stores. The review, which will be established later this month, comes in the wake of serious non-compliance issues identified at cutting plants operated by 2 Sisters Food Group and Russell Hume and will be industry-wide.

In the last six months, the FSA and FSS have faced two serious incidents involving major players in the meat sector. People rightly expect food businesses to keep to the rules, rules designed to keep consumers safe and to sustain public trust in food – and food businesses have a duty to follow the regulations.

In the light of these recent incidents, the FSA and FSS will be taking forward reviews of cutting plants and cold stores used for meat. Further details will be published later this month and the results will be fully available to the public.

Cutting plants are wholesale butchery establishments engaged only with the cutting of meat and boning out of carcases.

Slaughterhouses, Cutting Plants and GameHandling Establishments require veterinary control in accordance with Article 4(7) of Regulation (EC) No 854/2004 and must be approved by the FSS in Scotland and FSA in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, unlike slaughter houses, cutting plants do not require veterinary control on a daily basis and are inspected through periodical and unannounced visits by the FSA, FSS or local authorities.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has taken action to stop any product from leaving sites operated by Russell Hume because of concerns about non-compliance with food hygiene regulations.

These concerns were uncovered as the result of an unannounced audit on 12 January at one site which then led to a wider investigation in the following days across all their plants and also into products held in cold stores. The investigation relates to allegations of non-compliance with food hygiene regulations, including an allegation that ‘use by’ dates on some meat products supplied by the company have been extended.

In light of the allegations, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) visited the Russell Hume Scottish site on 17 January and took immediate and proportionate enforcement action. FSS are satisfied that food businesses in Scotland have withdrawn all relevant products from the market. There is no indication that people have become ill from eating meat supplied by Russell Hume.

The FSA is taking a proportionate approach based on the findings and are working in partnership with FSS to do this. FSA are unable to provide further details which could potentially jeopardise future enforcement action.

As a result of these further investigations which highlighted the serious issues of non-compliance, Russell Hume have been required to stop all production at the plants and detain all products. The company has initiated a voluntary withdrawal of all affected products and are working with the FSA. No meat can leave their sites until they can provide assurances that they are complying with the relevant legislation and that they are producing safe food.

Distribution of meat from Russell Hume is to a range of outlets, including hospitality and catering businesses, and care homes and schools. Restaurants who were known to have been supplied Russell Hume meat include Jamie Oliver, JD Weatherspoon and Hilton. JD Weatherspoon have announced that they have ended their contract with Russell Hume.

An exciting new training resource is now available which aims to make Elementary Food Hygiene courses more memorable and effective for learners.

Originally designed around the REHIS Elementary Food Hygiene course material, the game is equally relevant and useful for learners across the country and supports Level 2 Food Safety training. Supplementary question cards are provided where recommendations differ between Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The Food Hygiene Game is ideally suited for structured food hygiene training courses, or as an informal learning activity in the hospitality or catering industry. It is also a fantastic resource for food education in Home Economics, Food Technology or other food related classes at school or college.

To learn more and get your copy of The Food Hygiene Game priced at £60 (+VAT) visit here. 

A new public information leaflet on E. coli O157/STEC has been developed and is now available on the HPS website and can be accessed here.

The leaflet provides information to the public on E. coli O157 and other STEC infections including:

• What are E. coli O157 and STEC?
• Where is STEC found?
• How can infection be avoided?

Some simple but effective precautions include:

• Washing and drying hands thoroughly using running warm water and liquid soap.
• Minimising contact with animal faeces.
• Good food hygiene practices.
• Not drinking untreated water.

The leaflet has been developed to replace the older ‘Simple precautions for reducing the risk of E. coli O157 infection in rural families and visitors’ leaflet and has been designed to give general information on what E. coli O157/STEC is and some general advice on how to avoid infection.

It is not intended as a patient information leaflet for cases. A separate patient information leaflet, intended for cases/parents, has been developed and will go out for consultation with the E. coli O157/STEC clinical guidelines.

New legislation is now in force for private water supplies (pws).

The Water Intended for Human Consumption (Private Supplies) (Scotland) Regulations 2017 govern the quality of water supplied to private water supplies which are subject to the provisions of European Council Directive 98/83/EC on the quality of water intended for human consumption ("the Drinking Water Directive").

These Regulations supersede the Private Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations 2006 to the extent that they apply to such supplies.  For smaller supplies exempt from the Directive the 2006 Regulations continue to apply. The Water Intended for Human Consumption 2017 Regulations may be found here.

The 2017 Regulations were subsequently amended by the Public and Private Water Supplies (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Regulations 2017.  These regulations may be found here.

Guidance for Local authorities has produced by the Drinking Water Quality Regulator on the new regulations and can be accessed here.

Furthermore, an online mapping resource can help Local Authorities explore pws zones within their area.

Due to these changes DWQR will be holding a workshop later on in the year.

Local authorities are reminded that the pws returns are due soon. The 2016 Annual Report can be found here.