Food Inspector Interview - What to Expect?

Hello Fellow IFSQN members,
Recently I had applied for a Food Inspector Job.. Previously I had worked as a Quality hygiene safety and Environment Manager for about 2 Years but since this firm is a catering organisation I would appreciate if some of the people here who have a catering experience could guide me in this issue. Please tell me what to expect in an interview for food inspector :dunno:and If possible key points of a food inspector anyone would expect in a catering firm!!

Thanks a tonne in advance...
Dave

Hello Fellow IFSQN members,
Recently I had applied for a Food Inspector Job.. Previously I had worked as a Quality hygiene safety and Environment Manager for about 2 Years but since this firm is a catering organisation I would appreciate if some of the people here who have a catering experience could guide me in this issue. Please tell me what to expect in an interview for food inspector :dunno:and If possible key points of a food inspector anyone would expect in a catering firm!!

Thanks a tonne in advance...
Dave

Dear Creative,

You may need to supply a little more information to get useful replies, eg types of product, location (eg 5 star hotel, an aeroplane, a production/supply unit for schools, hospitals ), actual level of recruitment.

Offhand "Food Inspector" could apply to involvement / control in a wide variety of activities such as at the beginning of a food chain (eg receiving ingredients) to the end distribution (eg a hotel room), monitoring the surrounding GMP status or carrying out HACCP related functions to name but a few.

Rgds / Charles.C

Hello Charles Thank you for the reply,
I am actually having an interview in a catering service of a Hospital. The hospital is pretty big and they have a restaurant and also supply daily meals for all the patients in the hospital. They are ISO 22000 Certified I believe !! So I have good knowledge about the hygiene and safety part from the point of view of a Quality manger ( I mean all the documents risk analysis and also the daily verification docs)... But can you please elaborate on the primary role of the food inspector just to confirm and also give some idea about the regular verification processes that are common to a catering company....

Dear Creative,

You may need to supply a little more information to get useful replies, eg types of product, location (eg 5 star hotel, an aeroplane, a production/supply unit for schools, hospitals ), actual level of recruitment.

Offhand "Food Inspector" could apply to involvement / control in a wide variety of activities such as at the beginning of a food chain (eg receiving ingredients) to the end distribution (eg a hotel room), monitoring the surrounding GMP status or carrying out HACCP related functions to name but a few.

Rgds / Charles.C

Hello Charles Thank you for the reply,
I am actually having an interview in a catering service of a Hospital. The hospital is pretty big and they have a restaurant and also supply daily meals for all the patients in the hospital. They are ISO 22000 Certified I believe !! So I have good knowledge about the hygiene and safety part from the point of view of a Quality manger ( I mean all the documents risk analysis and also the daily verification docs)... But can you please elaborate on the primary role of the food inspector just to confirm and also give some idea about the regular verification processes that are common to a catering company....

Dear Creative,

No direct experience but a hospital is inevitably going to be a rather specialised work scenario for patient's health related reasons.

Probably self-evident but i expect that the first priority of yr job is to ensure that the food delivered is safe. This means ensuring that the FS system is correctly designed and implemented. Followed by maintaining adequate sensorial quality.

Based on yr comments, I daresay the interviewer will be impressed if you have some awareness of the design / implementation of ISO 22000 (IMO many candidates probably will not ). This system can be rather different to other FS systems regarding the haccp approach (eg see some of the threads here on OPRP).

I have attached a few googled illustrative documents / links below. They probably answer some of yr queries as to "likely problems to be faced / overcome" more realistically than i can.

The FS verification aspects are spelled out in the ISO 22000 / 22004 standards. I suggest you have a look there. If you are in USA, Verification may include validation also.

 food safety program in hospital.pdf   2.43MB   19 downloads
http://www.wisegeek....ften-so-bad.htm
(see added comments at bottom)


Hope this is helpful

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear Charles,
Thank you very much for the valuable information and the document that you had given me !! I had been previously going through the same document that you had given me.. thank you very much once again for the help..

Dave.

Dear Creative,

No direct experience but a hospital is inevitably going to be a rather specialised work scenario for patient's health related reasons.

Probably self-evident but i expect that the first priority of yr job is to ensure that the food delivered is safe. This means ensuring that the FS system is correctly designed and implemented. Followed by maintaining adequate sensorial quality.

Based on yr comments, I daresay the interviewer will be impressed if you have some awareness of the design / implementation of ISO 22000 (IMO many candidates probably will not ). This system can be rather different to other FS systems regarding the haccp approach (eg see some of the threads here on OPRP).

I have attached a few googled illustrative documents / links below. They probably answer some of yr queries as to "likely problems to be faced / overcome" more realistically than i can.

The FS verification aspects are spelled out in the ISO 22000 / 22004 standards. I suggest you have a look there. If you are in USA, Verification may include validation also.

 food safety program in hospital.pdf   2.43MB   19 downloads
http://www.wisegeek....ften-so-bad.htm
(see added comments at bottom)
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=m3bszatgis0

Hope this is helpful

Rgds / Charles.C