Employer liability and due diligence.
Employer liability:
The connection between food hygiene legislation, your
canteen and contract catering audits.
You must not leave food hygiene audits to the on site
contract caterer because they impact you as an employer
with both your employer liability and catering budgets.
Can you demonstrate due diligence?
CSSolutionsLtd are the UK leaders at independently assessing catering contractors and vending operators
performance standards.
As an employer your duty to your employees is personal and non- delegable. Using your catering contract or vending contracts as a defence for poor standards is no excuse;
employer liability means you have a duty of care!
Common law duties. As the employer legally your duty to your employees is personal and non-delegable. You can delegate the duty to your contractors or employees but not your responsibility for a negligent performance!
Contract catering budget. You are responsible for all bottom line related costs! Your business has to be compliant and is totally reliant on its employees; so their welfare and any catering costs are your first and second priorities...
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Employment liability dictates you must take reasonable care to ensure the safety and health of employees.
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Remember if your catering department chooses which catering consultants are used to monitor their standards all data produced by that consultant will have a clear bias.
This obvious vested interest not to divulge information that could risk or jeopardize the catering contract makes you vulnerable to both additional risk and costs!
Without facts you do not have control. Data integrity must be beyond debate, from a truly independent source with no vested interest in retaining a relationship with your catering contractors, vending operators or in-house catering team...
An unbiased food hygiene audit data reduces both your risk and paying a higher catering subsidy!
It’s not sufficient to say employee welfare standards are good or bad; how do you prove it?
This is not just about employment liability, with control you “manage” standards & catering costs more effectively than could otherwise be possible.
Food hygiene legislation is there to protect you - IT'S YOUR RISK:
No matter what size your food prep facilities do not underestimate the very real potential risk from basic food poisoning to your employees. A food hygiene audit gives you all of the facts!
If your still not convinced that food hygiene legislation applies to your canteen; or that this should be left purely to your caterer and their choice of catering consultants.
Consider the following; both clearly related to poor catering standards:
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Profit for them; if the in-house caterer, vending supplier or contract caterer cuts back on the less profitable
areas for them they create more margin for themselves but create higher risk for you.
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Profit for you; when the catering contractors or vending operators cut corners then any merchandising
of your facilities is likely to be poor reducing sales making the catering subsidy much
higher for you.
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Also consider:
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Convenience; it’s very easy for catering related contractors to hide standards without “independent”
policing. Ineffective food storage, poor cleaning and incorrect temperature control being
typical examples.
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Familiarity; people become used to falling standards until of course things go to far and the contract
has to go out to tender.
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Staff knowledge; lack of guidance and control! |
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Interest; lack of it due to not having clear benchmarking of minimum standards! |
The reason’s irrelevant; your employees should never be put at risk and your catering budget subsidy needs to be as low as possible.
Common law duties. Remember your duty of care and also your contract catering budget catering costs and subsidies. Remember you can not hide behind locally agreed catering contracts or vending contracts!
To arrange your free site survey; telephone 0151-929 3273 or complete the simple Cssolutionsltd questionnaire on the Contact us page.
