While the threat of Brexit and potential tariffs on imports has cast a shadow over the catering industry in the UK, this market has continued to boom over the course of the last five years. In fact, it’s now worth an estimated £1 billion, with the sector having achieved annual growth of 1% on average since the beginning of 2013.
Aside from Brexit, this market also faces a raft of additional challenges in the current climate, including the need to comply with increasingly stringent health and safety regulations. Whilst this type of legislation is important, it can be costly for businesses to comply and maintain a model that’s both profitable and viable over time.
In this post, we’ll look at the steps that you can take to guarantee compliance and ensure that your business can achieve sustainable success.
Be proactive and partner with trusted suppliers
When looking to create a compliant business, it’s important to be proactive and make purchasing decisions that minimise long-term issues.
One example is to partner with trusted equipment suppliers from the outset, as this ensures that you invest in durable and high quality items that are not prone to wear or tear over time.
By investing in high quality equipment such as bain maries, you’ll also access items that are exceptionally easy to clean and maintain, making them far more likely to pass objective health and safety inspections. Remember, kitchen equipment is often quite technical and requires an accredited service engineer, and buying substandard goods on the cheap will only increase your costs in the long-term.
Sold by reputable and trusted suppliers like Nisbets, this type of equipment usually comes with extended guarantees and plays an active role in minimising the risk of accidents in typically busy catering environments.
Complete a unique risk assessment in your business
This brings us onto the subject of risk assessment, which is a must for any business regardless of what industry it participates in.
There’s no doubt that conducting a risk assessment is particularly important for food oriented businesses, however, as people who work in these ventures which are often exposed to boiling hot liquids and temperatures, various tripping hazards and heavily populated working areas.
It’s therefore crucial to conduct a comprehensive and independent risk assessment of your premises, including all areas where food is prepared and served.
Ideally, you’d hire a third-party service provider to undertake this work too, as this will guarantee the quality of any findings and identify the key areas that need to be tackled as a priority.
Train your staff properly
In any instances where staff must comply with vast and complex swathes of health and safety legislation, it’s also important to place training at the front and centre of your business strategy.
This involves a number of different aspects, including training your employees to ensure that they’re well-versed in current food handling standards and the best practices.
At the same time, you’ll need to make sure that any employees who are required to lift heavy items and prepare food are also well trained.
More specifically, they must learn how to lift correctly and handle potentially dangerous kitchen equipment safely, in order to reduce the risk of accidents in the workplace.
