Who needs this course?
Ensuring staffs are trained well, with reputable certification such as City and guilds
accredited certificates can help towards a company’s due diligence in case of food safety disputes.
This level 2 course in food safety for retail is suitable for all who serve or handle food that is
ready to eat, or unwrapped, whether prepared by them or not.
Food retailing has its own special knowledge requirements as food must be maintained for a period
of time, in prime condition, until it is sold. Additionally, on-line food sales are also increasing
and food laws apply equally to this type of food retail. The food retailer is generally the first point
of call for dis-satisfied customers and reputation can be lost very quickly when food is unfit for sale.
The level 2 food hygiene certificate in retail is suitable for:
- Catering/ retail mobile units
- Shops and supermarkets selling foods
- Market stalls and street traders
- On-line or postal food sales
- Those retailing food for events/ charities
In addition to the accepted syllabus for level 2 food safety in retail,the course also covers that information which is specific to the challenges of food retail.
The course is divided into 5 lessons covering:
- The importance of food safety
- Personal hygiene
- Safe cleaning and use of chemicals
- Food safety hazards
- Temperature control & safe food storage
Course content for basic Food Hygiene Certificate in Retail - level 2
Lesson 1 (click to expand)
- Individual responsibility within food safety procedures
- The importance of food safety
- Food safety as part of food safety management procedures.
- The principle causes of food-borne illness.
- Food poisoning bacteria.
- Parasites, moulds, viruses, chemicals, metals and natural poisons.
- The principal symptoms of food-borne illness.
- How food borne illness affects consumers and retail businesses
- How poor food safety practises affects food retail businesses
- Examples of food safety procedures in retail stores
- How good food safety procedures help prevent illness
- Record keeping
- Examples of documents and records
- How demonstration of “due diligence” can form part of legal defence
- Reporting procedures
- Matters that must be reported to owners, managers or supervisors in food businesses
- Legal responsibility
- The types of penalties applicable to food handlers or businesses
- The role of the EHO and other authorised officers
- The power of enforcing authorities
Lesson 2 (click to expand)
- The importance of personal hygiene
- General personal hygiene
- The basic rules with regard to personal hygiene
- Types of protective clothing to prevent contamination of food
- Changing protective clothing
- Unhygienic personal habits
- Tying back hair and appropriate hair covering
- Food hazards caused by jewellery
- The importance of hand washing in reducing contamination
- Hand washing procedure
- Hand washing facilities
- The importance of illness reporting
- Carriers
- Actions to take with potential carriers
- Food operatives with stomach upsets, illness and infections
- Cuts and wounds
- Pathogenic organisms present in the nose, ears, boils and spots
Lesson 3 (click to expand)
- The function of cleaning chemicals
- Detergents
- Disinfectants and sanitizers
- Cleaning procedures for premises
- Basic cleaning
- Equipment and utensils
- Importance of using appropriate cleaning materials
- The purpose of cleaning schedules
- Clean as you go
- The use of suitable cloths
- Safe use of cleaning chemicals and disinfectants
- The storage of chemicals
- Understanding chemicals as potential chemical hazards
- The risks to food safety of dirty and untidy areas
- The importance of maintaining surfaces and equipment in good condition
- Waste disposal
- Frequency of waste disposal
- Cleaning and location of waste bins
- Pest control
- Pests and food safety hazards
- Conditions favourable to attracting pests
- Controlling food safety hazards from pests
- Detecting pest infestation
- Contamination by pests
- Preventing access to pests
- Pest infestation – taking action
- Pest control in food premises
Lesson 4 (click to expand)
- Lesson markings “use-by” and “best before”
- Why food beyond its “use-by” date should be discarded
- The importance of stock rotation
- Contamination of delivered and stored food
- The importance of checking food
- The importance of hygienic storage
- Storing food in temperature controlled equipment
- Storing food in chilled or frozen conditions
- Legal temperature ranges for storage
- Storing food at ambient temperatures
- Rules to be observed when storing foods
- What is meant by a food safety hazard
- Types of bacteria, pathogenic, spoilage
- Physical contaminants
- Chemical contaminants
- Allergens
- Possible consequences if hazards are not controlled
- Incidence of food poisoning
- Basic conditions affecting the growth, survival and death of micro-organisms
- The role of micro-organisms in food poisoning
- Bacterial spores and bacterial toxins
- How to recognize the main signs of food spoilage
- The importance of reporting spoilt food
Lesson 5 (click to expand)
- Types sources, vehicles and routes of contamination
- Sources of food poisoning bacteria
- Contamination vehicles
- Food packaging and liquid waste
- Why raw food can be a source of contamination
- High risk food
- Hazardous areas for cross – contamination
- Preventing contamination and cross-contamination
- The importance of high standards in food safety.
- HACCP + HACCP systems
- Controlling hazards
- Control measures
- Critical control point
- Critical limits
- Monitoring activities – examples
- Keeping records
- Temperature control
- The effect of applying heat to toxins
- The effect of applying heat to spore forming bacteria
- The causes of food spoilage
- The importance of suitable intact packaging
- The “danger-zone”
- Rules covering thawing + defrosting
- Rules covering cooking
- Cooling + re-heating
- Checks to ensure food is thoroughly defrosted
- Checking that food is thoroughly cooked
- Safe holding and service of food
- Hot display
- Serving
- Rules for chilled and ambient display
- Chilled storage + display
- Notes for frozen storage (e.g.: ice cream)
Duration of the course
Without breaks the course will take about 2 hours but the user can take as long as they like to fully understand the content.
Testing
When the user feels ready to undertake the test, they can proceed to the 30 multi-choice question test(from a bank of questions). The test will take 20-30 minutes. The successful candidate will answer 66% of the questions correctly to obtain a certificate. The questions are marked electronically and the result is given instantly
Certification
The city and guilds certificate is accredited certificate is printed directly from the candidates PC, or from a central PC in the case of larger companies. The successful candidates will have their results stoned in City and Guilds electronic database, the “walled garden”
Costs
£29 + VAT per course – Multiple discounts available when buying more than 10 courses - This award also comes in the format of catering and manufacturing.
Frequently Asked Questions
- QShould I take a level 1 or a level 2 Food safety retail course?
- AThe level of course you should take depends on what you sell. This level 2 course is for those who handle + sell ready to eat food, or high risk foods, or those whose companies or business have selected to do a higher level of course, for business reasons.
- QI sell tea and biscuits to visitors and patients in a hospital. Which course should I do?
- AWhen selling food to people who could be classed as being vulnerable (i.e sick), we always recommend a level 2 course, even though tea and biscuits are not high risk foods.
- QI make quiches and then sell them on marketing stall, what course should I take?
- AYou could either take catering or retail. I don’t think an audit would demand a re-look the retail course, if you had already taken the catering, or vice versa. However the course you take must be at level 2 as quiche is a ready to eat high risk food.
- QI only employ three part time people beside myself, I already have a food safety certificate but if they only work 8 hours, they won’t need one, will they?
- AI am afraid so, it is just as easy to handle food in an unsafe way if you work for 8 hours or 40. All your staff who handles food must be trained.
- QI have been issued with a hygiene improvement notice and must have my staff trained within 40 days. How can I train a staff within that time limit?
- AA. one of the benefits of eLearning is the flexibility to train whenever or wherever you like, or staff can even access the training and certificate from their own computers. My advice is to get with it quickly.
- QQ. How long do I have to pass the certification?
- AOnce you have paid your course and received your access codes, the course will be available for one year. If you do not pass the certification within this period, the course expires.
