Food Safety and Hygiene for Food Handlers
What the exam tests
This domain checks that you understand a food handler's legal duties and how hygiene is managed day to day in a Maltese food business. Expect questions on fitness to work, reporting illness, HACCP awareness, cleaning, waste and pest control. The standard is EU Regulation 852/2004 as applied in Malta, plus the principle of due diligence: you must be able to show what you did and why.
Core rules
- You must keep yourself, your clothing and your work area clean, and tell your supervisor before starting work if you have vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, jaundice, a skin infection or discharge, or if you have been in contact with someone with a foodborne infection.
- Do not handle food if you have diarrhoea or vomiting. Return only when symptom-free for the period your manager or doctor advises - commonly at least 48 hours - and longer for infections such as Salmonella, E. coli O157 or where medical clearance is required.
- HACCP is a systematic approach: identify hazards, set controls at critical points, monitor them, record results, correct problems and review. You do not need to design a HACCP plan to pass, but you must know why records matter.
- Clean as you go: remove debris, clean with detergent, rinse, then disinfect food-contact surfaces. Use separate cloths for raw and ready-to-eat areas.
- Store waste in lidded bins away from food; keep pests out by proofing openings and reporting sightings.
Worked example
A handler feels unwell with diarrhoea two hours into a shift. The correct action is to stop handling food, report immediately, wash hands, leave the food area and go home. Washing hands and putting on gloves is not enough: gloves do not contain pathogens, and a symptom such as diarrhoea is a reason for exclusion. The exam often rewards the report-and-exclude answer, not the 'carry on with extra care' answer.
Traps
- Thinking gloves replace exclusion or handwashing.
- Waiting until the end of the shift to report illness.
- Treating HACCP as paperwork only, not as daily control.
- Assuming food poisoning comes only from meat; ready-to-eat foods and infected handlers also matter.