Food safety inspections

Food hygiene inspections:
The Food Control group carries out regular checks on all food premises in the Borough to ensure the public is protected, the law is complied with and that high standards are maintained.

These inspections are carried out under the Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2006, and are undertaken in line with the Food Standards Agency Food Law Code of Practice and other national guidance.

Visits to premises are carried out, as far as possible, without prior notification and are priority programmed according to the degree of potential risk. This ensures that higher risk premises are visited more frequently than those in lower risk categories.
The frequency depends on:

• The type of food and method of handling
• Whether there are any high risk processing activities
• The size of the business, in terms of the number of customers
• Compliance with food hygiene practices
• Compliance with structural requirements
• How confident we are in the management of the food business
• Whether the food handling practices we see could pose a significant risk to health.
• The inspection results in a score that determines the date of the next inspection, or intervention (anywhere between 6 months and 3 years).

During an inspection, officers will want to reassure themselves that potential food safety risks have been identified by the business, and that there are adequate controls in place to prevent any problems. They will also look at the training of managers and food handlers to ensure that it is suitable, and they will check that the condition of the premises and equipment is satisfactory.

Where practices or conditions are not satisfactory, every attempt will be made to resolve the situation by informal means, but where poor conditions persist, or where there is a risk to public health it may be necessary to resort to formal action. This could involve either the service of legal notice, prosecution, or in extreme cases closure of the business.

Following a food hygiene inspection a business is given a certificate with a score on how well it performed in terms of hygiene, it's structural condition and its overall attitude in complying with the law. Follow this link to view food hygiene ratings.

Food standards inspections:
The Food Control Group also carries out planned inspections for food standards, i.e. the legal requirements covering:

• Food quality
• Food composition
• Food labelling
• Food presentation
• Advertising of food
• Materials or articles in contact with food

Our inspections under the Food Safety Act 1990 are undertaken in line with an official code of practice on food standards inspections and other national guidance.

Following an inspection a score is given to reflect the risks identified, the higher the score the greater the inspection frequency.  The inspection results in a score that determines the date of the next inspection, or intervention (anywhere between 12 months and 5 years).

The Food Standards Agency requires all local authorities to produce a service plan, available to download below, setting out how food enforcement activities are to be delivered. This should also include details of the inspection programme.

In addition, the Food Standards Agency has set out a Framework Agreement which sets outs its expectations on the planning and delivery of food law enforcement and this can be found by clicking on the link. The Agreement provides the Agency with a mechanism for implementing its powers under the Food Standards Act to influence and oversee local authority enforcement activity.

Opening Times:
Monday - Friday
8.45am - 5.15pm

Enforcement Policy
Luton Council has adopted the central and local government concordat on good enforcement practice and our enforcement policy leaflet, available to download below, explains the approach that will be adopted by officers when carrying out the Council’s duties.

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