9.30 Welcome and introduction
Chair: Jenny Morris, Principal Policy Officer, CIEH
9.45 Microbiological Criteria
Dr Slim Dinsdale, Food Safety Experts
- What is in the IFST, HPA, new CFA and Micro Criteria Regulations?
- The legal status of the various criteria
- Some pitfalls of using microbiological criteria
10.35 Physical & Chemical contaminants
- A review of applicable criminal legislation including control requirements on businesses and investigative requirements on enforcers
- The extent of a duty of care
- Foreign body detection – an update on the technology available and a consideration of what is reasonable from cafe to factory
11.10 Refreshment break
11.30 The Burden of Proof: food safety offences, food hygiene offences, civil claims - due diligence
- How businesses should be implementing, documenting and verifying their systems in order to be successful in a defence situation
- What is the status of food business accreditations such as BRC Global Standard in assisting with a due diligence defence
- A review of the amount and quality of evidence to prove food safety and food hygiene offences
12.10 Food Poisoning Outbreaks
- The role of microbiology as well as victim evidence in proving a case
- Can a conviction or award of damages be achieved:
- on statistics alone in the absence of microbiological / toxicological evidence?
- With positive samples of food or premises environment but in the absence of victim samples?
12.50 Lunch
13.50 Food, Premises and Human Samples and their analysis
- A brief review of how microbiological results are obtained
- How close is a lab result to the reality of what is sampled?
- Quantifying uncertainty
- Pitfalls to avoid in interpreting lab results
14.30 Refreshments
14.50 Industry Drivers of Food Safety: TBC
- How does industry manage food safety: consultants, QA departments, in house?
- What makes a successful management system in small and large businesses?
- Understanding commercial decision-making regarding food safety
- Identifying businesses who pay lip service only to food safety
15.30 Building a safer food culture through better business practice
Jenny Morris, Principal Policy Officer, CIEH
- Sharing good practices
- Transparency for EHOs and industry
16.10 Final question and answer session
16.30 Close