What happens during an EHO visit?

Today, I want to share what happens during a food hygiene inspection by your local authority EHO.

Many businesses are unsure of what actually happens during a food hygiene inspection. But once you and your team know roughly what to expect, it becomes much easier to prepare and aim for a top food hygiene rating. There’s no secret formula—every food hygiene inspection follows a similar format, and I’ll walk you through the 3 areas EHOs assess, the key things they’ll look for, and the common questions they’ll ask during their visit.

3 areas EHOs assess

1. Food Safety and Hygiene Procedures

This is about how hygienically you are handling the food. The EHO will observe your food preparation, cooking, storage, and serving practices to ensure they meet safety standards.

2. Structure and Cleanliness of Your Premises

The EHO will look at the cleanliness and physical structure of your premises, paying particular attention to areas where food is stored, prepared, and served.

3. Confidence in Management and Control Procedures

This is where the EHO look at how you actually manage food safety in your business. And this includes looking at your written food safety procedures, records and other documents such as food hygiene training certificates for your team members.

Key things EHOs will be looking at

The EHO will have a look around your premises. This includes your kitchen, food storage and preparation areas, toilets, staff changing areas etc. They will observe how you store, handle, prepare, and serve food to assess whether it’s done safely. So think about how you manage cross-contamination between raw and cooked foods and also between allergens. They are also going to monitor your team members to see that they are working safely, following your procedures and maintaining good standards of personal hygiene such as hand washing.

They will also look at the physical condition, layout and cleanliness (including signs of pests) of your premises, most likely with a greater focus on your kitchen and food preparation areas. But don’t forget they will probably also check outside to see how you are storing waste and managing any pest issues. 

Finally, they EHO will probably want to sit down and review your food safety procedures, records and other paperwork. This will include your food safety management system (often called a HACCP system), or for small businesses, the SFBB pack. They will also want to see your monitoring records, this may be a daily diary, fridge and freezer temperatures, cooked food temperatures and so on. Other items will be staff food hygiene training records, pest control records, waste control records, allergen information for your products, details of your suppliers, cleaning schedule etc.    

Common questions EHOs may ask

Please bear in mind, as with all of these things, the specific of what they ask and look at will depend on your business, what you do and what they find on the day. But here are some common questions they may ask you or any of your team members:

• Who are your suppliers?
• What checks do you do when you receive deliveries?
• How do you check the temperature of the food in your fridges?
• What core temperature do you look for when you cook food?
• How do you cool down hot food?
• How do you calibrate your temperature probe?
• Where do you wash your hands?
• How do you separate raw and cooked foods during preparation?
• How do you clean and disinfect food preparation surfaces? (they may even ask you to demonstrate)
• What is the contact time for your sanitiser?
• Where is your food safety management system or HACCP system?
• Where are your food safety records?
• Where is the allergen information for your dishes?
• How do you handle allergen requests from customers?
• How do you prepare food for a customer with a food allergy?

While this list may seem overwhelming, hopefully they will give you something to think about and maybe even use to test your team. Remember these are the common ones, do think about your business and any other specific questions you think the officer may ask and give some thought to how you might answer any other questions.