Reporting of Food Safety Problems

Every food handler has a different job role from being a chef in the galley, to serving in the passenger's food areas to servicing the crew mess. This training will help you support your team no matter what their role is on board to understand the bigger picture of food safety in all departments. 

As a supervisor, you need to ensure that your team know that they should be reporting problems to you. This will allow you to take corrective action and improve the food safety management system.  

Teams will be trained to report issues to you. Your role is to address them immediately with the corrective action in accordance with the HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) food safety plan. (This training will cover more about HACCP in later steps.) 

Below is a list of things your team may spot as they go about their everyday work.

• Finding food that is out of temperature control (hot and cold).
• Finding unfit and spoiled food or food with an out-of-date code.
• Noticing Damaged equipment/structure e.g ventilation not working or chipped crockery.
• Discovering signs of Pest.
• Finding unclean areas in the galley, service area, restaurant and other areas of the vessel.
• Reporting if they have sickness or they notice passengers or crew showing signs of sickness.
• Observing fellow crew members with unhygienic habits.
• Noticing a build-up of waste.
• Insufficient hand-washing facilities or no soap/paper towels

Below are your keywords for this section of your training. These words you will use during your work and will appear in the final exam, so be sure you learn them.

Encouraging your team to be proactive and report any issues is good practice. Not only can something be done about it to fix the situation but plans to prevent it from happening again can be put in place. 

Reporting also has the following benefits:

• Stops food safety issues before they happen,
• Saves time,
• Prevents a bad reputation,
• Allows you to bring the situation back under control,
• Makes work conditions better,
• Improves the food safety management system overall, and
• Prevents waste and increases the self-life of food.

Please remember...Support your team if they report something. Explain what the corrective action is and why. Share the good practice with others in the team so they can benefit and learn at the same time. 

This course will help you understand food safety management on board and contribute to the HACCP Plan. There will be HACCP teams who are responsible for the HACCP plan on board who are fully trained in HACCP. 

The Main Faults That Result in Food Safety Problems

There are numerous faults that can result in food safety problems. Listed below are some of the most common. As you follow through with this training you will learn why these are problems and how to prevent or control them. Knowing why these problems can cause food safety issues will help you be accountable in your role as supervisor and ensure your team's good decisions. 

The most common food safety faults that result in food safety problems are:

• Preparing food too far in advance and storing it at room temperature.
• Slow cooling of cooked food.
• Not reheating/cooking properly.
• Contaminating food.
• Not thawing completely before cooking.
• Food handlers are infected or have bad personal hygiene.

Having poor food safety on board has many disadvantages. The most important being food safety issues causing illness or even death. Poor food safety will also affect the reputation of the yacht, the management company and also affect the morale of the crew causing high staff turnover.  

If a Yacht fails a port health inspection or VSP inspection there are various outcomes. Depending on the severity (normally a point scoring system) a ship may be given a set period of time to rectify the issues or in some instances prevent the yacht from sailing.

Protecting the guests, the crew and the reputation of the yacht is the role of every crew member on board. As a supervisor, it is your role to support, monitor and check that all your team members are working effectively and efficiently.