What is food safety?
Food Safety refers to handling, preparing and storing food in a way to best reduce the risk of individuals becoming sick from foodborne illnesses.
The principles of food safety aim to prevent food from becoming contaminated and causing food poisoning. This is achieved through a variety of different avenues, some of which are:
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- Properly cleaning and sanitising all surfaces, equipment and utensils
- Maintaining a high level of personal hygiene, especially hand-washing
- Storing, chilling and heating food correctly with regards to temperature, environment and equipment
- Implementing effective pest control
- Understanding how food allergies, food poisoning and food intolerance are caused.
Why is it important to wash hands before food preparation?
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- Thorough handwashing with soap and water can protect you and others from a range of infectious diseases.
- Liquid soap is better than bar soap, especially at work.
- Washing hands with soap and water is better than using alcohol-based hand sanitisers.
- Dry your hands thoroughly.
How to wash your hands
This is a short video demonstrating how to wash your hands.
Personal Protective Equipment
Food safety begins with clean hygienic surfaces. This includes hand and clothes, as well as the work surfaces and utensils used in the processing and production of foods. Personal protective equipment (PPE) provides two types of protection. Protection for you and protection for the meat.
