Severe Winter Weather

  • 1 March 2018

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.

View article

Climate change reports 2016/17- analysis published

  • 14 February 2018

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 […]

View article

FSS and FSA update on Russell Hume

  • 12 February 2018

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 […]

View article

Just eat removes 35 unregistered restaurants following BBC investigation

  • 12 February 2018

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 […]

View article

UK could adopt Norway bottle recycling system

  • 12 February 2018

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 […]

View article

Review of cutting plants and cold stores

  • 8 February 2018

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 […]

View article

Russell Hume meat incident

  • 1 February 2018

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 […]

View article

The Food Hygiene Game- a new resource for food hygiene training

  • 31 January 2018

An exciting new training resource is now available which aims to make Elementary Food Hygiene courses more memorable and effective for learners. The Food Hygiene Game has been officially approved by the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS) as a training resource. The game was developed by Focus Games Ltd and Brenda Black, a […]

View article

Health Protection Scotland develop new E.Coli leaflet

  • 31 January 2018

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 […]

View article

Private water supplies update

  • 31 January 2018

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 […]

View article

Scotland’s international exports for food and drink on the rise

  • 31 January 2018

Scotland’s international exports for food and drink has increased by £275 million to £5.5 billion in 2016. The rise revealed in National Statistics Publication: Export Statistics Scotland (ESS) 2016 has been driven by strong whisky exports (£4.0 billion in 2016). The manufacture of food and beverages continues to be the largest industry for international exports […]

View article