Application of HACCP principles in the independent restaurant sector of the UK catering industry

This research project investigates the development processes, practices and outcomes of 'Safer Food Better Business' (SFBB) - a project initiated by the UK Food Standards Agency at Salford University. SFBB is an adaptation of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) - the existing, internationally accepted food safety management methodology for food manufacturing - developed to ensure its use, utility and acceptance by the catering industry whilst achieving the standards of scientifically based risk management systems set by the UN Codex Alimentarius Committee. Previous national and international food safety initiatives have failed to ensure catering industry compliance with minimum standards within this complex and under researched area of the food industry. This work addresses a key research question - 'Can the traditional methodology of Codex HACCP be adapted to the complex catering situations found in small independent restaurants through the utilisation of multidisciplinary teams interacting with industry representatives' This research was structured in five stages. Stage (1) focused on identifying, clarifying and verifying the research problem. This was undertaken through an in-depth investigation into 25 restaurants utilising structured interviews in order to identify levels of adherence to key food safety guidance instructions, restaurant owner-managers understanding of food safety; and the use of documentation and levels of record keeping. Stage (2) was a documentary examination of current catering food safety in order to determine the areas where these systems matched the Codex standards required, and also where present systems did not achieve appropriate levels of outcome. This work was under taken through the use of gap analysis techniques. Stage (3) was an in-depth analysis of the processes and outputs of the multi-disciplinary team at Salford University that was set the task of constructing SFBB, the new food safety management system based upon Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles. Stage (4) examined the utility and practicality of SFBB through mentoring 50 randomly selected restaurants using an action research methodology. Stage (5) evaluated the system using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods. The results demonstrate that 'Safer Food Better Business' is a pragmatic solution to the problems of adapting HACCP for use in catering. Interestingly, traditional catering practices, such as testing through the use of sensory cues, were validated and consequently suggest that this system will find resonance in the catering trade. Training needs were also identified and new National Occupational Standards prepared. The validity of SFBB was further validated by measurements of cognitive, affective and behavioural change