2 replies to this topic

[Focal food]

Hi,
This is my first time posting on this site, so just a quick background. I am a freelance food technologist based in South Africa and deal mostly in legislative issues and hygiene (training & system implementation).

What is the general consensus in the rest on the world on doing annual health checks on all food handlers? I would assume that this is a normal routine in food manufacturing, but the SA government's official opinion seems to be that it is a waste of resources and training staff properly would be better protocol. there reasoning is that only a small amount of food borne illnesses would actually be picked up anually and therefore it is better to train staff to report certain diseases and teach hand washing etc. regularly.

Be interested to know what other companies/ countries opinions are on this,

Regards,
Norah

[Simon]

Hi,
This is my first time posting on this site, so just a quick background. I am a freelance food technologist based in South Africa and deal mostly in legislative issues and hygiene (training & system implementation).

What is the general consensus in the rest on the world on doing annual health checks on all food handlers? I would assume that this is a normal routine in food manufacturing, but the SA government's official opinion seems to be that it is a waste of resources and training staff properly would be better protocol. there reasoning is that only a small amount of food borne illnesses would actually be picked up anually and therefore it is better to train staff to report certain diseases and teach hand washing etc. regularly.

Be interested to know what other companies/ countries opinions are on this,

Regards,
Norah

To me the ongoing approach of educating people to prevent and report through education seems much more of a preventitive measure than batch processing once a year. It's too late by then. Regarding the law and guidance in standards on this issue I am not sure about, so I will leave to the experts.

Welcome to the forums Norah.

Regards,
Simon

[Vik]

Hi,

I agree with that but only for food borne ilness,we need to consider other transmittable diseases too,prodution is an area were chances of getting disease transmitted is very high.

Drug abuse is another big issue which may result in low productivity,customer complaints,at times a no smoking board/label is not enough .......... training is a good option but screening is an essential tool.