Page 7 - Be Ready For Brexit

FURTHER GUIDANCE FOR CATERING AND HOT FOOD TRADERS
We all know how popular catering and hot food traders are on markets, and how many of the successful market traders have gone on to be food destinations across our town centres.
The hot food traders have all of the Brexit readiness factors to consider set out in the two previous guides. They need to apply the same preparation as all market traders, they need to be as fully compliant with food provenance as the food and grocery traders and they have a few other aspects to consider in regard to preparing their food and the storage and hygiene of their storage and selling facilities.
Not only does the Government Brexit website provide detailed advice, so does the Food Standards Agency and also the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.
The relevant links are contained in this section of the guide.
The Food Standards Agency make the following statement on their website:
“If your business deals in food, or animal feed, your responsibility to make sure it is safe will remain a requirement of law from day one of the UK leaving the EU. For most businesses, the current requirements of food and feed law will continue to apply with no or limited changes.”
The FSA web site also lists links to a variety of FSA and Defra guidance covering a wide variety of food sourcing and preparation advice. This includes 4 guides from FSA and 11 Defra links:
https://www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/prepare-your-business-for-the-uk-leaving-the-eu
https://www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/prepare-your-business-for-the-uk-leaving-the- eu#get-ready-for-brexit
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health states that “There are over 50 separate EU Directives and Regulations alone that govern food standards in the UK, whilst more than
40 per cent of all legislation coming out of EU is food related.”
The institute adds that “following Brexit, the UK will still need a strong regulatory framework to protect our economy, our exports and the health and well-being of consumers, workers and communities.” With this in mind the regulatory control is unlikely to change.
Clear actions for catering and hot food traders include:
• Check all suppliers and sources of ingredients are fully prepared to continue to supply
after Brexit
• Check that you and your suppliers will be fully standards compliant
• Secure your staff compliment
• Be proactive in promoting to your customers, where things remain constant then say so,
menus, ingredients, prices, quality etc.
• Where you have made changes, then let the customer know and use it as a positive.
The Government’s Brexit statements go beyond environmental health aspects when they discuss the environment but the intention is clear — use this link as a guide:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/upholding-environmental-standards-if-theres-a-no-deal-brexit
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