Food safety inspections

If you are a business proprietor or manager seeking advice about how to handle food or need advice about the standards required for your business, please read on.

Alternatively, if you have a food safety issue you wish to tell the council about, find out more here:

The council carries out regular checks on all food premises to ensure the public is protected and that high standards are maintained.

Food Safety is responsible for the inspection of all 2,300-food businesses within the Tower Hamlets borough. This includes all food premises where food is handled, prepared, or stored - whether money is exchanged or not.

Visits include spot checks and are scheduled according to the degree of potential risk. This ensures that high-risk premises are visited more frequently than those in lower risk categories.

During the inspection, officers check to see that legal requirements are up to standard and that potential food safety risks have been identified by the business.

Furthermore they address the training of managers and food handlers and check the structure and cleanliness of the premises and equipment. Issues considered include: the type of food handled, the number of potential customers and handling practices.

The inspecting officer will then offer advice on good hygiene practice. Where practices or conditions are not satisfactory, every attempt is made to resolve the situation through informal means, but where poor conditions persist, or where there is a risk to public health it may be necessary to resort to formal action.
This could involve either the service of legal notice, prosecution, or in extreme cases, closure of the business.

For further information

London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Mulberry Place (AH)
PO Box 55739
5 Clove Crescent
London E14 1BY

E-mail: foodsafety@towerhamlets.co.uk
Tel: 020 7364 5008
Fax: 020 7364 6901

Pid No: 406