Wokingham

There will be more serious matters on the table than fortune cookies and chop-sticks when the Wokingham borough’s very first food safety conference in Chinese languages is held later this month.

Wokingham Borough Council’s environmental health team will be hosting a special Safer Food Better Business course on Monday February 25, aimed at giving food business managers, staff and proprietors, whose main language is Cantonese or Mandarin, advice on food safety, standards and management.

The Wokingham course has been offered to English speakers already and has been successful in educating food business mangers on a variety of food-safety topics. However, because the borough has a number of Chinese restaurants it was decided to offer the course in Cantonese and Mandarin for people whose first language wasn’t English, but would benefit from the course.

Emily Chan, an environmental health officer form the London Borough of Wandsworth, will be leading the course in the two languages, with help from the council’s own environmental health team.

Topics covered throughout the day will include:

· Cross contamination
· Cleaning
· Cooking
· Chilling
· Management skills

Advice on the day will help businesses comply with laws introduced in January 2006, which stated all food businesses had to have a food safety management system in place – this involves businesses examining all food operations, identifying where risks may occur and reducing those risks.

The Wokingham council already helps businesses through offering guidance and prompting the Food Standard Agency’s Safer Food Better Business packs, which are available in Chinese and Indian languages and cover all the key points needed for a solid food safety management system.

Peter Haikin, environmental health manager, said: “It’s important that we help as many members of the food business community as possible to get a good food safety management system in place, which is why we’re offering this course in Chinese languages.”

Cllr Barrie Patman, executive member for Wokingham community safety, added: “Not only is it a legal requirement to have a food management system in place, it is also a way of making sure that restaurants, take-aways, cafés and pubs take food hygiene, safety and management seriously.

“ We’ve provided a course in Chinese languages to ensure that those people who would benefit from this information but would find it difficult to understand in English, have the opportunity to learn about the importance of food safety, so the borough’s restaurants remain safe places to eat.”

Wokingham Borough Council