In order to maintain a high food safety and quality at the abattoirs, it is crucial to be in full control of the hygiene and any sources of infection. Therefore, all employees handling food are educated in hygiene.

According to the HACCP principles, there are internal hygiene rules at all abattoirs concerning e.g. clothing and hand hygiene. All employees at the abattoirs handling food must also participate in an all-day course in hygiene.

 

Hygiene rules

Detailed and comprehensive hygiene rules in accordance with the HACCP principles ensure a high food safety and quality at the abattoirs. The hygiene rules contain requirements for the abattoir staff’s clothes, hand hygiene and tools.

According to the EU's regulation on food safety hygiene (852/2004), the manager of a food business operator must implement and follow permanent procedures under the production based on the HACCP principles.

Critical control points

HACCP is an abbreviation of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points and has been a part of EU’s hygiene legislation since 2005. HACCP is an internationally acknowledged method for analysing the production and identifying risks in relation to food safety that must be taken into account during the daily work. The method is used by developing self-control programmes and is a fundamental element in certified quality systems for food safety.

According to the HACCP principles, all abattoirs must have internal hygiene rules for e.g. employees and persons from the outside who perform occasional work at the abattoir.

The hygiene rules apply during work and visits to production facilities during the entire production time and include:

  • Requirements for work clothes and footwear
  • Requirements for the sequence of dressing (first beard net and hairnet, then cleaning and disinfection of hands, then putting on of pants and smock and finally shoes/boots)
  • Requirements for jewellery and makeup not being worn in the production facilities
  • Personal belongings must not be brought into/placed in the production
  • Personal tools (knives, chain mail gloves etc.)
  • Restrictions against bringing food, drink, medicine into the production and bans on smoking
  • Traffic in the production (traffic must take place from clean area into unclean area)
  • Requirements for hand hygiene (for example at passing through hygiene sluices, after breaks, after visits to the toilets, in connection with every contaminations of hands)
  • Illness (contact to immediate manager at a number of symptoms of disease) and if you have sores or bandages
  • Handling of products, e.g. guidelines for treatment of products with visible contamination
  • Handling of trays or other equipment in contact with products or product-carrying surfaces
  • The use of packaging
  • The use of tools and codes of conduct at repair work during production

Instruction in hygiene

In order to guarantee that food products are safe for the consumers, strict EU rules apply for all employees at food business operators. All employees who handle food products must therefore be trained and instructed in food hygiene and in Denmark, this takes place through participation in an all-day course.

Background

Managers of all food business operators must ensure that all individuals who handle food products are supervised and instructed and/or trained in food hygiene in reasonable relation to the work performed by the individual. This follows from the EU’s regulation on food hygiene (852/2004).

Managers of food business operators must also ensure that individuals responsible for the development and implementation of the operator’s HACCP-based procedures are sufficiently educated.

Target groups for training

All newly employed employees in the production must participate in an all-day course in hygiene.
In addition, a three-day HACCP course is held for the members of the HACCP group.

The purpose of the hygiene course

For the employee to be able to:

  • Comply with the hygiene rules of the food business operator
  • Show good personal hygiene
  • Use clean work clothes and tools
  • Have good knowledge and understanding of the occurrence and growing conditions of bacteria
  • Show correct behaviour in order to avoid biological, chemical and physical contamination

The purpose of the HACCP course

For the employee to be able to:

  • Identify physical, chemical and microbiological sources for contamination in industrial food production and evaluate the risk of the sources and their consequences in relation to the actual food production.
  • Be familiar with the HACCP system's principles and thereby contribute to the implementation of the HACCP system according to the EU’s and Denmark’s legislation as well as customer demands in the food product area.

Summary of training

  • A targeted hygiene training programme for all employees at the operator who are handling food products will ensure optimum production hygiene and product quality.
  • A targeted HACCP course for employees in the operator’s HACCP team ensures a strong focus on and a good basis for ongoing improvements of the food safety.