Following safe food hygiene practices is not just good practice. It is the law. As a food handler, you need to understand what the law requires of you, and what can happen when it is broken.

This module explains the main food safety laws, how food businesses comply with them, who enforces them, and the powers that enforcement officers have.

Knowing the law helps you understand why each procedure on your site exists. This module covers:

• Food hygiene and the law.
• The key pieces of legislation.
• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, or HACCP, and its seven principles.
• Food defence and food fraud.
• Prerequisite programmes.
• Enforcement, legal notices and penalties.
• Due diligence and traceability.

Ireland is a member of the European Union, so EU food regulations apply directly here, supported by Irish regulations. Together, they set standards for food premises, food safety management, the training of food handlers, and temperature control.

Everyone in a food business needs to know how the law affects their work. If a business is prosecuted, not knowing the law is not an acceptable defence.

The main laws you should be aware of are:

• Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, on the hygiene of foodstuffs.
• Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, the General Food Law, which sets out general food safety principles, including traceability.
• The European Union (Food and Feed Hygiene) Regulations 2020, which give effect to the EU hygiene rules in Ireland.
• The Food Safety Authority of Ireland Act 1998, which set up the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, and gives enforcement powers.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland, or FSAI, is the national body responsible for food safety. It enforces food law through service contracts with official agencies, including:

• The environmental health service of the Health Service Executive, or HSE.
• The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
• The Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority.

These agencies carry out inspections, audits and investigations, and the FSAI publishes details of enforcement orders.

Article 5 of Regulation 852/2004 requires food businesses to have a permanent procedure based on the principles of HACCP, or Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points:

• Conduct a hazard analysis.
• Identify the critical control points, or CCPs.
• Set critical limits for each CCP.
• Establish monitoring procedures.
• Decide on corrective actions.
• Verify that the system works.
• Keep documentation and records.

Manufacturers must also guard against deliberate threats.

• TACCP, or Threat Assessment Critical Control Point, protects against deliberate contamination or tampering, for example by controlling who can access production areas.
• VACCP, or Vulnerability Assessment Critical Control Point, protects against food fraud, such as substituting, diluting or mislabelling ingredients, by assessing weak points in the supply chain.

Report anything suspicious, such as damaged seals or unknown visitors, straight away.

HACCP can only work if the basic conditions for safe food are already in place. These are called prerequisite programmes. They include:

• Buying only from reputable, approved suppliers.
• High standards of personal hygiene.
• Staff training.
• Effective pest control.
• Cleaning and disinfection.
• Maintenance of premises and equipment.
• Waste management.

Environmental health officers and other authorised officers enforce food law in Ireland. They can:

• Enter food premises at any reasonable time to inspect them.
• Investigate complaints and outbreaks of food poisoning.
• Take samples, photographs and other evidence.
• Detain or seize food that is unsafe or unfit.
• Serve legal notices and orders, or take legal action.

Under the Food Safety Authority of Ireland Act 1998 and related regulations, officers can use:

• An Improvement Notice, requiring specific improvements within a set time.
• An Improvement Order, made by a court if an Improvement Notice is not complied with.
• A Closure Order, closing all or part of a premises, or stopping an activity, where there is a risk to public health.
• A Prohibition Order, stopping the sale of a particular product.

Failing to comply with food law can lead to prosecution, with heavy fines and, for serious offences, prison sentences.

Closure of the business and serious damage to its reputation can also follow. The FSAI publishes the names of businesses served with enforcement orders, and these are often reported in the news.

If something goes wrong, a business must be able to show that it took all reasonable precautions, and exercised all due diligence, to prevent it.

This depends on documented procedures, accurate records, and full traceability, so that every ingredient, batch and package can be traced one step back to its supplier, and one step forward to its customer.