Food Hygiene

The Hull & Goole Port Health Authority is responsible for checking food hygiene and sanitation standards aboard vessels arriving within the district. Shore-based food premises such as dockside canteens and warehouses are also within the scope of our enforcement duties.

The Food Hygiene (Ships & Aircraft) Order 2003 applies the same Food Hygiene Regulations as are applicable to shore based food premises.

UK legislation is available on the Office of Public Sector Information website 

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/stat.htm

Our Port Health Inspectors (EHOs) carry out programmed sanitation and food hygiene inspections of vessels and premises within our area. This is done on a risk-assessed basis according to the Code of Practice and the Framework Agreement issued by the Food Standards Agency. The focus is on the prevention of food poisoning outbreaks.

Service requests for new Ship Sanitation Certificates should be addressed directly to the office, in advance of the ships arrival if possible.

Liaison with other Port Health Authorities is maintained through the Association of Port Health Authorities (APHA) with the aim of consistency of enforcement and the sharing of good practice. Ship inspection data will be shared, confidentially, between port health authorities, usually by means of the APHA-SIMS web-based database. Inspection reports may aslo be published.

APHA and the Maritime & Coastguard Agency both recognise that there are some “overlaps” in their respective duties in regard to hygiene aboard ships. To ensure a consistent approach and where possible avoid duplication of enforcement action a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been agreed by both agencies. This aids communication and relevant joint action as necessary.

Our Inspectors are trained to give advice on good practice and compliance with the law and can be contacted at the Hull office.

The Regulations require that all food businesses in our area must register their premises with the Authority before trading commences. This enables an up-to-date list of all premises subject to regular inspection.

We are also the enforcement authority for the approval and inspection of 2 large commercial cold stores and the Fishgate Auction House on Hull Docks together with several factory and freezer fishing vessels registered in Hull.

We have the responsibility for the inspection of fishery products presented for sale at the Fishgate Auction House in Hull and fish landed at Hull Docks from vessels.

We can issue Export Certificates for food products on request. There will be a charge for this service. Please contact the office in advance with service requests.

We have a programme of water, ice and prepared food sampling from vessels, premises and supply hydrants. Most of these are examined by our HPA microbiologist.

Ships water samples taken at the request of the ship may be the subject of a small charge and we supply a certificated report. For further details or advice please contact us.

The Authority has a Food Safety Enforcement Service Plan, Food Enforcement Policy and Food Complaints Procedure (see download link below). We also have a documented General Enforcement Policy and a policy for dealing with any complaints regarding the standard of our service. These documents are available for downloading on the "OUR SERVICE" web page.