HTML Preview Restaurant Cleaning And Maintenance Schedule page number 1.
An Information pack produced for the food businesses of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
This Food Safety Pack was devised, written and produced by the Food Safety Team of Wyre Borough Council’s Environmental Health Service Unit.
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Maintenance Schedules
Why is maintenance important?
There are a number of reasons why both the premises structure and equipment require scheduled maintenance:
1. It ensures the effective and safe operation of equipment. For example, it is essential that equipment designed to
keep food hot or cold works correctly. Faulty equipment operating at the wrong temperature can lead to growth
of food poisoning bacteria.
2. It should mean that the life expectancy of the premises structure and equipment is increased. Also, the
likelihood of faults and breakdowns should be reduced.
3. It will reduce the risk of direct contamination of foodstuffs during storage, preparation and cooking. For
example, contamination of food from flaking wall plaster or rust particles from corroded equipment.
4. It is a legal requirement of the Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995 that food premises
and equipment must be maintained in good repair and condition.
5. Smooth, sound surfaces are easier to clean than damaged ones, so cleaning and disinfection will be improved.
Why schedule maintenance of food premises?
1. By scheduling maintenance checks you will ensure equipment and structure are examined on a regular basis.
2. The Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995 require proprietors of food businesses to identify
potential food hazards, decide which of these hazards need to be controlled to ensure food safety and then put
into place effective control and monitoring procedures to prevent the hazards causing harm to consumers. A
system to maintain and check structure and equipment will help to identify hazards which you will then be able
to control.
Why have a written maintenance schedule?
1. It is an offence to sell food which is unfit, substandard or which may cause harm to the person consuming it.
The principle defence available to a person accused of selling such food is one of due diligence. This requires
them to prove they ‘took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing
the offence’. Written records would be considered extremely important when trying to establish a defence in
cases where, for example, a loose nut or bolt from a badly maintained food mixer had found its way into a
product.
2. It clearly demonstrates that measures are in place to control food safety hazards even though written records are
not necessarily a legal requirement.
3. Having identified all the areas and equipment that require regular maintenance it provides a checklist to help
ensure things are not missed.