Food Safety, Hygiene and Risk Management
Hazards and their control
Candidates must classify hazards as biological (bacteria, viruses, moulds, parasites), chemical (cleaning agents, pesticides, allergens, toxins) and physical (glass, metal, bone, plastic). Know the high-risk foods: those high in protein and moisture such as meat, poultry, dairy, eggs, seafood and cooked rice. Understand the temperature danger zone (5°C to 60°C), the need to keep food out of it, and the principle that bacteria multiply fastest in warm, moist, protein-rich, neutral-pH conditions.
Hygiene practice and HACCP
Understand personal hygiene (handwashing, clean uniform, hair restraint, illness exclusion), environmental hygiene (cleaning versus sanitising, pest control, waste handling), and food handling (separating raw and ready-to-eat food, colour-coded boards, correct cooling and reheating). Know the seven HACCP principles in order: conduct a hazard analysis, determine critical control points, set critical limits, monitor, establish corrective actions, verify, and keep records. Cross-contamination and the difference between a hazard and a risk are frequent traps.
Risk management and legislation
Understand risk as likelihood multiplied by severity, and controls as elimination, substitution, engineering, administrative and personal protective measures. Food recalls, traceability, labelling of allergens and 'use-by' versus 'best-before' dates are commonly examined. Use-by dates relate to safety; best-before dates relate to quality.
Rule of thumb
For any scenario, apply the chain: identify the hazard, identify where it enters, name a control, and state how the control is monitored.
Worked example
A caterer cools a large pot of curry on the bench overnight. The hazard is bacterial growth in the danger zone. The control is dividing the curry into shallow containers and cooling rapidly under refrigeration; monitoring is checking the core temperature and time log against the critical limit.