Take-away fined for poor food safety

 

14-AUG-09

Issued by: Jeanette Hedley

A North Shields takeaway and its owner have been fined by magistrates after they were found to have breach 28 food hygiene guidelines.

Following guilty pleas on 23 separate charges Momins Tandoori Takeaway (North Shields) Ltd, of 37/39 Coast Road was fined £1,500 and ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge by North Shields Magistrates

Managing Director and Company Secretary, Abdur Razaq, of North Shields was fined a further £1,000 and ordered to pay £15 victim surcharge and prosecution costs of £550.00.

The court heard that North Tyneside Council's food safety officers visited the premises in October last year.

Their visit was to investigate a complaint from a customer that a man's dress ring had been found in an onion bhaji.

But officers also wished to check the cleanliness of the premises following 34 food hygiene contraventions identified during a previous visit in March 2008.

During the visits, when photographs of the food preparation and food storage areas were taken, 28 contraventions of the food hygiene regulations were confirmed - 26 of which related to the same issues found on the previous visit.

This include failures in food safety management; poor standards of cleanliness of the premises and equipment; refrigeration equipment operating at incorrect temperatures; failure to proof the premises
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against pest access; dirty protective clothing; insufficient facilities for hygienic hand drying; insufficient disinfection of equipment and food contact surfaces and food contamination risks.

During the inspection a member of staff, who was responsible for the production of onion bhajis identified the dress ring found by the customer, as belonging to him.

When questioned about the offences Managing Director and Company Secretary, Abdur Razaq accepted food safety was his responsibility.

However he admitted he could not put too much 'pressure' on his staff in terms of food safety as if he did they would simply leave his employment.

He indicated that if the staff acted on his instructions and cleaned the premises it would only be a matter of time before the staff would "slack off" and the premises return to an unclean state.

And Mr Razaq confirmed that there was no documentation at the premises such as cleaning schedules demonstrating the effective application of good food safety practice.

The court was told the council therefore contended there is clear evident of their being breaches of the Food Hygiene (England) regulations 2006 and this is due to the operators of the business failing to adequately instruct and supervise the staff in cleaning.

Deficiencies identified at the earlier inspection had not been properly acted upon.

Speaking after the hearing. Trevor Greener, Food Safety Team Leader for North Tyneside Council, said: "We're pleased with the decision of the court

"It reinforces the message that it's important to manage food safety just as much as any other element of a business.

"The case itself was disappointing in the sense that we had to take the matter to court.

"This business would not respond to informal action to improve standards, repeatedly failing to maintain adequate standards of cleanliness on the premises. As a result we had no choice but to seek prosecution."