Food safety - inspections

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

Visits to premises are carried out, as far as possible, without prior notification and are priority programmed according to the degree of potential risk. This ensures that higher risk premises are visited more frequently than those in lower risk categories.

During an inspection, Officers will want to reassure themselves that potential food safety risks have been identified by the business, and that there are adequate controls in place to prevent any problems. They will also look at the training of managers and food handlers to ensure that it is suitable, and they will check that the condition of the premises and equipment is satisfactory.

Where practices or conditions are not satisfactory, every attempt will be made to resolve the situation by 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.

Complaints about food or premises

The investigation of food complaints is a role shared by Environmental Health and Kent County Council, Trading Standards. We investigate complaints that relate to hygiene conditions within food businesses in the Borough and safety issues about food sold from food businesses in the Borough. Matters relating to labeling, date coding or miss-descriptions are dealt with by the Trading Standards Department of Kent County Council, who can be contacted on 08454 040506.

If you have bought food from a shop in the Borough and find that it contains a foreign object, is mouldy or has something else wrong with it, you can complain to the council and we will investigate your complaint.  Alternatively you can return the food to the shop where you purchased it.

It is not the council's role to seek compensation on your behalf.

What we do

The level of investigation will depend upon the nature of the complaint, the Officer’s opinion and previous knowledge of similar complaints. We will contact the premises that sold the food, the manufacturer of the food and if necessary the local authority for the area in which they are based. We will gather as much information as possible to determine the source of your complaint and the reasons why it occurred. The investigation of food complaints can take a long time, the more complex investigations often taking several months, but we will endeavor to contact you regularly to update you on progress with your complaint. When our investigation is completed we will decide on an appropriate course of action and will notify you accordingly.

Under Section 21 of The Food Safety Act 1990, businesses have a defense in law called "Due Diligence". This applies if they were unable to prevent the complaint occurring, or were taking all reasonable steps to prevent it happening. In order to find this out, we need to find out what procedures the manufacturer or retailer has, what their record with respect to food hygiene is, how often complaints occur and what the opinion of the Officers who inspect the premises is. This will generally involve lengthy phone calls, correspondence and examination of documentation. If in our opinion a due diligence defence is likely to be achieved then we will be unable to take the complaint further and the investigation will be closed.

How to make a complaint

Keep the food in a sealed container, in your fridge or freezer if its condition is likely to deteriorate, until you are able to make your complaint. You should keep the packaging that the food came in and your receipt.

You can contact us on 01622 602202 or email customerservices@maidstone.gov.uk.  Alternatively you can bring the food to our gateway reception at any time the offices are open.

If you wish to complain about a premises contact us on 01622 602202 or email customerservices@maidstone.gov.uk, or write to:

The Environmental Health Manager

Maidstone Borough Council

Maidstone House

King Street

MAIDSTONE

ME15 6JQ

Complaints about the quality of food, food labeling or date codes should be made to:

Consumer Direct South East on 08454 04 05 06

Find out about Food Law Inspections for your Business from the Food Standards Agency website.