Definition

Hello and welcome to your Food Safety and Hygiene training. Once you’ve completed this course, you’ll know how to prevent contamination, illnesses, injuries and fatalities that can be caused by food. You’ll know how to safely prepare, serve and sell food to your consumers and you’ll be up to date with current legislation and industry best practice regarding cleaning, personal hygiene, food storage and safe food temperatures. Being human, we all need to eat and drink to survive. But food means much more than that. We use it to welcome people into our home, to show love for those we care for, to give strength and comfort to the sick, and to show kindness to those less fortunate than ourselves. We use it to say sorry, to offer our condolences, to get to know people, to form partnerships, to say thank you, and of course, to celebrate. Food is quite a big deal. And it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures – so let’s see what needs to be done to keep it safe and enjoyable to prepare, make, share, and best of all – eat.

Before we begin, we’ll cover a few definitions that will be used throughout this course.

So:

• Food – this is anything that people eat or drink, including ice and alcohol
• Food safety – this means protecting people’s health and safety by protecting food from anything that could cause harm
• Food handler – this is you. A food handler is anyone whose work involves food,

and whose actions, or the lack of them, could damage the safety of food

• Contamination – this word means ‘made impure’.

In food safety, this means a hazardous substance (known as a contaminant) has ended up in food

• Food hazard – this is anything that can cause harm to a person eating food. This includes contaminants. And –
• Food poisoning – this is any illness that’s caused by eating contaminated food