Malta Food Handling Category B cheat sheet

Biological hazards (bacteria, viruses, parasites, moulds) cause most foodborne illness; Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes and norovirus are the priority organisms in EU/UK-style inspection frameworks.

Chemical hazards include cleaning chemicals, pesticides, veterinary residues, mycotoxins, allergens and migration from packaging; they usually cause illness without the warning of spoilage.

Physical hazards are hard or sharp foreign bodies: glass, metal, plastic, bone, stones, jewellery, plasters; control by sieves, metal detectors, brittle-material registers and visual checks.

Allergens are treated as a chemical hazard with a legal labelling duty: 14 regulated allergens in EU law (cereals with gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites >10 mg/kg, lupin, molluscs).

Contamination routes are four: hands, surfaces/equipment, air and water droplets, and pests/vermin; each route requires its own control measure.

Spore-formers (Clostridium perfringens, Bacillus cereus, Clostridium botulinum) survive cooking and grow in slowly cooled or warm-held food; toxins are heat-stable.

Listeria monocytogenes grows at refrigeration temperature (down to about 0°C) and is the key hazard for chilled ready-to-eat foods such as smoked fish, soft cheese and deli meats.

High-risk foods are moist, protein-rich and near-neutral pH: cooked meat, dairy, eggs, shellfish, cooked rice, gravies and prepared salads; low-risk foods are dry, acidic, high-sugar or high-salt.

Hands must be washed with soap and warm running water for at least 20 seconds, then dried - ideally with single-use paper towels; hand sanitiser is not a substitute for washing when hands are visibly soiled.

Mandatory hand-wash points: before starting work, after toilet use, after handling raw meat/poultry/eggs, after waste handling, after cleaning, after breaks, after touching face/hair/phone, and after handling money.

Correct sequence: wet hands, apply soap, lather including backs, between fingers, thumbs and under nails, rinse under running water, dry, then use a paper towel to turn off the tap where a knee/foot control is absent.

Exclusion rules: staff with diarrhoea and/or vomiting must stay away from food work until 48 hours symptom-free; report infected wounds, skin infections, jaundice, or household contact with food poisoning.

A blue waterproof detectable plaster plus a finger stall is required for a covered hand wound; a wound that cannot be covered excludes the worker from open food handling.

Protective clothing: clean, light-coloured overclothing, hair restraint covering hair, beard snood where needed, no jewellery (except a plain wedding band where permitted), no nail varnish or false nails, no strong perfume.

Eating, drinking, smoking and vaping are restricted to designated areas away from food; personal medicines should be stored separately and reported if they could contaminate food.

Visitors and contractors entering food areas must follow the same hand-wash, clothing and reporting rules as staff; fitness-to-work declarations should be recorded.

Danger zone is 5°C to 63°C; minimise time in it. Chilled storage at 5°C or below, frozen storage at -18°C or below, hot holding at 63°C or above.

Core cooking temperature: 75°C for at least 30 seconds (or an equivalent time/temperature combination such as 70°C for 2 minutes); check with a calibrated probe at the thickest part.

Cooling rule: from 63°C to 20°C within 2 hours and from 20°C to 5°C within a further 4 hours, giving a maximum of 6 hours total; use shallow containers, ice baths, blast chillers or portioning.

Reheating must reach 82°C once only; food should not be reheated more than once, and hot-held food must not be returned to the fridge for later reheating.

Probe hygiene: clean and disinfect the probe before and after each use, especially between raw and ready-to-eat foods; use a probe with a thin tip to limit puncture contamination.

Calibration check: ice-point method (0°C in crushed ice and water) and boiling-point method (about 100°C at sea level, adjusted for altitude) should be recorded at defined intervals.

Defrosting must be done in a refrigerator at 5°C or below, in a microwave immediately followed by cooking, or under running potable water - never on a worktop at room temperature.

Display and record temperatures at least twice daily for chilled and frozen units; keep records for the period set by the business (commonly 3 months to 1 year, longer for high-risk products).

Colour-coded chopping boards and knives are the standard control: red for raw meat, blue for raw fish, yellow for cooked meat, green for salad/fruit, brown for vegetables, white for dairy/bakery (colour sets vary - follow the business's own scheme).

Store raw foods below and separate from ready-to-eat foods in refrigerators; raw meat, poultry and fish on the bottom shelf in lidded, leak-proof containers.

Separate preparation areas, equipment and staff where practical; if shared, clean and disinfect between raw and ready-to-eat use.

Ready-to-eat food must never touch surfaces, utensils or hands that have contacted raw food; use dedicated tongs, scoops and utensils, and never taste with fingers or a used spoon.

Wash hands and change gloves after handling raw meat, poultry, eggs, fish or unwashed vegetables, and before touching ready-to-eat food.

Wash raw fruit, vegetables and salad in potable water before use; unwashed produce is a recognised source of E. coli and norovirus contamination.

Separate waste streams: waste bins lidded, foot-operated, lined, emptied frequently, and located away from food preparation and storage.

Allergen cross-contact is a separate control: clean utensils, separate fryers/oil, dedicated scoops for each allergen-containing ingredient, and documented cleaning validation.

Cleaning removes visible dirt and grease; disinfection reduces microorganisms to a safe level. Both are needed: clean first, then disinfect on a visibly clean surface.

Two-stage method: detergent wash, rinse, then disinfectant at the manufacturer's contact time and concentration (typically 30 seconds to 5 minutes), then air-dry - do not rinse off food-contact disinfectant unless the label specifies it.

Clean as you go and follow a written cleaning schedule: what, how, when, who, and with which chemical; sign off each task.

Colour-coded cleaning equipment prevents cross-contamination: separate cloths/mops for raw areas, ready-to-eat areas, toilets and floors.

Chemical storage: original labelled containers, safety data sheets available, never decanted into food or drink containers, stored away from food.

Pest control: proofing (door sweeps, screens, sealed gaps, air curtains), hygiene (no food debris, waste removed), and monitoring (bait stations, sticky traps, fly-kill units not over food).

Signs of pest activity to record: droppings, gnaw marks, grease trails, live or dead insects, feathers, nesting material, and unusual smells.

Pest control contractor reports must be reviewed and any recommendations actioned and recorded; a pest control file is part of due diligence evidence.

Premises must be designed to allow the 'clean to dirty' flow: delivery, storage, preparation, cooking, cooling, packing and dispatch should not cross back over clean areas.

Surfaces in food areas must be smooth, impervious, washable, non-toxic and light-coloured; floors should be slip-resistant and coved at wall junctions.

Adequate hand-wash basins with soap and drying facilities must be provided in food preparation areas, separate from food-washing sinks.

Ventilation and extraction must remove steam, fumes and heat; extract canopies and filters require scheduled cleaning.

Equipment must be food-grade, easy to clean and in good repair; damaged chopping boards, cracked utensils and rusty shelving should be replaced.

Waste: sufficient, lidded, foot-operated bins; waste stored in a designated area away from food; collection frequency agreed with the waste contractor; records of collection kept.

Water supply must be potable; where a private supply or storage tank is used, testing and maintenance records are required.

Lighting must be adequate and protected (diffusers or shatterproof covers) over open food to prevent glass contamination.

Food business operators must ensure food safety at all stages of production, processing and distribution under their control, and must not place unsafe food on the market.

The HACCP-based system (or a documented food safety management system based on HACCP principles) must be in place, implemented and maintained, with records available for inspection.

Traceability: food business operators must be able to identify the supplier of each food and the businesses to which they supplied it ('one step back, one step forward'), and retain records for the legally required period.

Withdrawal and recall: if a food is unsafe, the operator must withdraw it from the market and, if it has reached consumers, recall it with clear information; notify the competent authority.

Staff must be supervised and trained in food hygiene appropriate to their work; training records should be kept and refresher training scheduled.

The competent authority (in Malta, the Environmental Health Directorate within the health authorities) carries out inspections and may serve improvement notices, prohibition notices or institute legal proceedings.

Registration of food establishments with the competent authority is required; approval is required for certain higher-risk activities such as handling animal by-products.

Allergen information must be accurate, available in writing for non-prepacked food, and included on prepacked labels; failure is a criminal offence and a public health risk.

Seven HACCP principles: hazard analysis; determine CCPs; establish critical limits; monitor CCPs; establish corrective actions; verify; establish documentation and records.

A hazard analysis identifies biological, chemical and physical hazards at each step and assesses likelihood and severity before deciding controls.

A CCP is a step where control is essential to prevent, eliminate or reduce a hazard to an acceptable level; critical limits must be measurable (for example 75°C core temperature for 30 seconds).

Monitoring must state what is measured, how, when, by whom and with what equipment; it must be frequent enough to detect loss of control before product is affected.

Corrective action must state what to do with the affected product (hold, rework, reject, recall) and how to fix the process, and must be recorded.

Verification confirms the system works: calibration checks, record reviews, product testing, internal audits and management review; validation confirms the controls are scientifically capable of controlling the hazard.

Records to keep: temperature logs, cleaning schedules and sign-offs, training records, pest control reports, supplier approvals, delivery checks, traceability and recall tests, and corrective action logs.

Records must be legible, dated, signed and retained for the period specified by the business or regulator; a documented recall procedure should be tested at least annually.

Biological hazards (bacteria, viruses, parasites, moulds) cause most foodborne illness; Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes and norovirus are the priority organisms in EU/UK-style inspection frameworks.

Chemical hazards include cleaning chemicals, pesticides, veterinary residues, mycotoxins, allergens and migration from packaging; they usually cause illness without the warning of spoilage.

Physical hazards are hard or sharp foreign bodies: glass, metal, plastic, bone, stones, jewellery, plasters; control by sieves, metal detectors, brittle-material registers and visual checks.

Allergens are treated as a chemical hazard with a legal labelling duty: 14 regulated allergens in EU law (cereals with gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites >10 mg/kg, lupin, molluscs).

Contamination routes are four: hands, surfaces/equipment, air and water droplets, and pests/vermin; each route requires its own control measure.

Spore-formers (Clostridium perfringens, Bacillus cereus, Clostridium botulinum) survive cooking and grow in slowly cooled or warm-held food; toxins are heat-stable.

Listeria monocytogenes grows at refrigeration temperature (down to about 0°C) and is the key hazard for chilled ready-to-eat foods such as smoked fish, soft cheese and deli meats.

High-risk foods are moist, protein-rich and near-neutral pH: cooked meat, dairy, eggs, shellfish, cooked rice, gravies and prepared salads; low-risk foods are dry, acidic, high-sugar or high-salt.

Hands must be washed with soap and warm running water for at least 20 seconds, then dried - ideally with single-use paper towels; hand sanitiser is not a substitute for washing when hands are visibly soiled.

Mandatory hand-wash points: before starting work, after toilet use, after handling raw meat/poultry/eggs, after waste handling, after cleaning, after breaks, after touching face/hair/phone, and after handling money.

Correct sequence: wet hands, apply soap, lather including backs, between fingers, thumbs and under nails, rinse under running water, dry, then use a paper towel to turn off the tap where a knee/foot control is absent.

Exclusion rules: staff with diarrhoea and/or vomiting must stay away from food work until 48 hours symptom-free; report infected wounds, skin infections, jaundice, or household contact with food poisoning.

A blue waterproof detectable plaster plus a finger stall is required for a covered hand wound; a wound that cannot be covered excludes the worker from open food handling.

Protective clothing: clean, light-coloured overclothing, hair restraint covering hair, beard snood where needed, no jewellery (except a plain wedding band where permitted), no nail varnish or false nails, no strong perfume.

Eating, drinking, smoking and vaping are restricted to designated areas away from food; personal medicines should be stored separately and reported if they could contaminate food.

Visitors and contractors entering food areas must follow the same hand-wash, clothing and reporting rules as staff; fitness-to-work declarations should be recorded.

Danger zone is 5°C to 63°C; minimise time in it. Chilled storage at 5°C or below, frozen storage at -18°C or below, hot holding at 63°C or above.

Core cooking temperature: 75°C for at least 30 seconds (or an equivalent time/temperature combination such as 70°C for 2 minutes); check with a calibrated probe at the thickest part.

Cooling rule: from 63°C to 20°C within 2 hours and from 20°C to 5°C within a further 4 hours, giving a maximum of 6 hours total; use shallow containers, ice baths, blast chillers or portioning.

Reheating must reach 82°C once only; food should not be reheated more than once, and hot-held food must not be returned to the fridge for later reheating.

Probe hygiene: clean and disinfect the probe before and after each use, especially between raw and ready-to-eat foods; use a probe with a thin tip to limit puncture contamination.

Calibration check: ice-point method (0°C in crushed ice and water) and boiling-point method (about 100°C at sea level, adjusted for altitude) should be recorded at defined intervals.

Defrosting must be done in a refrigerator at 5°C or below, in a microwave immediately followed by cooking, or under running potable water - never on a worktop at room temperature.

Display and record temperatures at least twice daily for chilled and frozen units; keep records for the period set by the business (commonly 3 months to 1 year, longer for high-risk products).

Colour-coded chopping boards and knives are the standard control: red for raw meat, blue for raw fish, yellow for cooked meat, green for salad/fruit, brown for vegetables, white for dairy/bakery (colour sets vary - follow the business's own scheme).

Store raw foods below and separate from ready-to-eat foods in refrigerators; raw meat, poultry and fish on the bottom shelf in lidded, leak-proof containers.

Separate preparation areas, equipment and staff where practical; if shared, clean and disinfect between raw and ready-to-eat use.

Ready-to-eat food must never touch surfaces, utensils or hands that have contacted raw food; use dedicated tongs, scoops and utensils, and never taste with fingers or a used spoon.

Wash hands and change gloves after handling raw meat, poultry, eggs, fish or unwashed vegetables, and before touching ready-to-eat food.

Wash raw fruit, vegetables and salad in potable water before use; unwashed produce is a recognised source of E. coli and norovirus contamination.

Separate waste streams: waste bins lidded, foot-operated, lined, emptied frequently, and located away from food preparation and storage.

Allergen cross-contact is a separate control: clean utensils, separate fryers/oil, dedicated scoops for each allergen-containing ingredient, and documented cleaning validation.

Cleaning removes visible dirt and grease; disinfection reduces microorganisms to a safe level. Both are needed: clean first, then disinfect on a visibly clean surface.

Two-stage method: detergent wash, rinse, then disinfectant at the manufacturer's contact time and concentration (typically 30 seconds to 5 minutes), then air-dry - do not rinse off food-contact disinfectant unless the label specifies it.

Clean as you go and follow a written cleaning schedule: what, how, when, who, and with which chemical; sign off each task.

Colour-coded cleaning equipment prevents cross-contamination: separate cloths/mops for raw areas, ready-to-eat areas, toilets and floors.

Chemical storage: original labelled containers, safety data sheets available, never decanted into food or drink containers, stored away from food.

Pest control: proofing (door sweeps, screens, sealed gaps, air curtains), hygiene (no food debris, waste removed), and monitoring (bait stations, sticky traps, fly-kill units not over food).

Signs of pest activity to record: droppings, gnaw marks, grease trails, live or dead insects, feathers, nesting material, and unusual smells.

Pest control contractor reports must be reviewed and any recommendations actioned and recorded; a pest control file is part of due diligence evidence.

Premises must be designed to allow the 'clean to dirty' flow: delivery, storage, preparation, cooking, cooling, packing and dispatch should not cross back over clean areas.

Surfaces in food areas must be smooth, impervious, washable, non-toxic and light-coloured; floors should be slip-resistant and coved at wall junctions.

Adequate hand-wash basins with soap and drying facilities must be provided in food preparation areas, separate from food-washing sinks.

Ventilation and extraction must remove steam, fumes and heat; extract canopies and filters require scheduled cleaning.

Equipment must be food-grade, easy to clean and in good repair; damaged chopping boards, cracked utensils and rusty shelving should be replaced.

Waste: sufficient, lidded, foot-operated bins; waste stored in a designated area away from food; collection frequency agreed with the waste contractor; records of collection kept.

Water supply must be potable; where a private supply or storage tank is used, testing and maintenance records are required.

Lighting must be adequate and protected (diffusers or shatterproof covers) over open food to prevent glass contamination.

Food business operators must ensure food safety at all stages of production, processing and distribution under their control, and must not place unsafe food on the market.

The HACCP-based system (or a documented food safety management system based on HACCP principles) must be in place, implemented and maintained, with records available for inspection.

Traceability: food business operators must be able to identify the supplier of each food and the businesses to which they supplied it ('one step back, one step forward'), and retain records for the legally required period.

Withdrawal and recall: if a food is unsafe, the operator must withdraw it from the market and, if it has reached consumers, recall it with clear information; notify the competent authority.

Staff must be supervised and trained in food hygiene appropriate to their work; training records should be kept and refresher training scheduled.

The competent authority (in Malta, the Environmental Health Directorate within the health authorities) carries out inspections and may serve improvement notices, prohibition notices or institute legal proceedings.

Registration of food establishments with the competent authority is required; approval is required for certain higher-risk activities such as handling animal by-products.

Allergen information must be accurate, available in writing for non-prepacked food, and included on prepacked labels; failure is a criminal offence and a public health risk.

Seven HACCP principles: hazard analysis; determine CCPs; establish critical limits; monitor CCPs; establish corrective actions; verify; establish documentation and records.

A hazard analysis identifies biological, chemical and physical hazards at each step and assesses likelihood and severity before deciding controls.

A CCP is a step where control is essential to prevent, eliminate or reduce a hazard to an acceptable level; critical limits must be measurable (for example 75°C core temperature for 30 seconds).

Monitoring must state what is measured, how, when, by whom and with what equipment; it must be frequent enough to detect loss of control before product is affected.

Corrective action must state what to do with the affected product (hold, rework, reject, recall) and how to fix the process, and must be recorded.

Verification confirms the system works: calibration checks, record reviews, product testing, internal audits and management review; validation confirms the controls are scientifically capable of controlling the hazard.

Records to keep: temperature logs, cleaning schedules and sign-offs, training records, pest control reports, supplier approvals, delivery checks, traceability and recall tests, and corrective action logs.

Records must be legible, dated, signed and retained for the period specified by the business or regulator; a documented recall procedure should be tested at least annually.