Hygiene traffic light for food businesses in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)
Jun 19, 2017 - hygiene
Hygiene traffic light for food businesses in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)
As the first federal state, NRW is introducing a hygiene traffic light for food establishments. According to the state government, around 150,000 food establishments are affected. The responsible minister says: "Our goal is to make the results of official food inspections transparent for consumers and to highlight exemplary operating businesses positively." After a transition period of three years, the official monitoring results must be displayed in the form of a control barometer visibly for consumers. Until then, businesses can voluntarily display the control barometer. And this is what the control barometer will look like:
The law is still being hotly debated. The BLL considers the law to be "legally highly questionable and unacceptable." Numerous legal problems and concerns regarding the present law are also formulated by the participating umbrella organizations.
The results of food monitoring are influenced by, for example, the following points:
- Compliance with food law regulations
- Traceability
- Staff training
- HACCP procedures
- Product testing / self-inspections
- Temperature compliance / cooling
- Structural condition / maintenance
- Cleaning / disinfection
- Personnel hygiene
- Production hygiene
- Pest control
This change in legislation also makes it clear that food inspections by authorities will gain higher relevance or become stricter in the long term. The latter is also demanded by a new EU control regulation, which was adopted by the EU Parliament in March.
Therefore, our recommendation: Take preventive action by further expanding your self-monitoring system.
We will keep you informed about future developments on this topic.
We are happy to support you with our experience. Please contact Ms. Lechner for questions (Email: conny.lechner@bav-institut.de, Tel: 0781 969 47-13).