Legislation on acrylamide mitigation in food

Acrylamide is a chemical formed by a reaction between amino acids and sugars. It can occur when foods with high starch content such as potatoes, dough products + coffee, are cooked at temperatures over 120°C in a process of frying, roasting or baking. It is thought that acrylamide may cause cancer in humans as it has been confirmed to in studies on animals.

On the 11th of April 2018 regulation EC 2017/2158 will come in to force. Establishing mitigation measures and benchmark levels for the reduction of the presence of acrylamide in food. This must be incorporated into your HACCP document and business operators must be aware of it.

The size of the business dictates how much work you need to do, there are no set limits introduced by the legislation merely guidelines and an obligation to be aware of how to reduce acrylamide production in food (for a small business) through to actively ensuring that you implement mitigation methods and prove their validity within your HACCP documentation.

If you’d like to know more about our acrylamide training for business operators, acrylamide HACCP development or, if you’re an EHO, about our training for officers, contact us on: 07850 902 366

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Birmingham restaurant fined £50,000 over wooden serving boards

A story much hyped up by the media, without wishing to sound too much like Donald Trump this story is about more than wooden boards. The company were told to stop using damaged boards and had a notice served on them.

They then carried on using the boards, not complying with a notice makes the offence much worse, plus they had various other issues such as not washing hands, an unclean premises + they were not using sanitiser inline with the manufacturer’s instructions.

So long as you keep your boards clean, sanitise them when needed + throw them away if they become some cracked and damaged they cannot be cleaned you’ll be fine. Another alternative is to not serve the food directly on the board and use grease proof paper on top, however that’s more wastage and cost.

To read the BBC’s take on the story read here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-42582900