Personal Hygiene

High standards for personal hygiene are expected for excellent guest service. Food handlers on board need to understand more about the importance of personal hygiene from a food safety perspective to implement good practices and control to keep food safe from harm.

Food Handlers Must:

• Have high standards of personal hygiene,
• Wear clean protective clothing,
• Not work if ill or suspected of being a carrier of harmful bacteria,
• Be trained in line with work activities.

Protective clothing is to protect the food from you not you from the food. It should be well-fitting with long sleeves and no loose buttons. It should have no pockets for loose items like pens and coins to fall in the food and be light in colour. It should be professionally cleaned to be sure it's free from bacteria. 

What is a Carrier? 

A carrier is someone who may be harbouring an illness without showing symptoms but is still able to contaminate food and others.

Let's begin with hand washing. Since the COVID-19 pandemic everyone is fully aware of the importance of effective hand washing and without a doubt, has seen video's/publications on how to do this properly. Hand washing and hand-washing facilities have always been legal requirements for food handlers.

There should be adequate facilities for hand-washing in all food areas. Hot and cold running water or automatic taps at a temperature of 30-40°C. If the water in hand-washing facilities is too hot, people will simply not wash their hands properly.

There must be a bacterial hand wash available with paper towels or air-dryers and a foot-operated bin. 

Sinks for hand-washing should not be used for any other purpose to prevent cross-contamination.

The Steps for Effective Hand Washing are:

1. Wet hands under running water.
2. Apply liquid hand-wash soap.
3. Rub hands together cleaning all parts of hands, especially nails, fingertips including wrists. Do this for at least 20 seconds
4. Rinse off and lather.
5. Dry hands with a paper towel or warm air dryer.
6. Use a paper towel to turn off the tap.
7. Throw the paper towel in the foot-operated bin.

Using alcohol gel does not replace effective hand-washing. Sanitising gel is good for entering non-food-related rooms. Alcohol gel is also effective for COVID-19 control when boarding the ship. It is also good to use if on deck, after folding beach towels for example, if there is no immediate hand-wash sink.

Disposable gloves can be contaminated as well as hands. Hands must be washed before putting on and gloves must be disposed of between tasks. Gloves do not replace hand washing. 

• Hand-washing film from the Food Standards Agency

Always Wash Hands

All crew have the same responsibilities even if they are not food handlers. All illnesses but be reported to ascertain if they are fit for work. Stomach cramps, septic cuts, boils, skin infection, diarrhoea, vomiting, food poisoning and COVID 19 symptoms all require reporting.

• Cross-contamination and illness video from the Food Standards Agency

Hazards from People and Control

As a supervisor, you need to be clear with your team that personal hygiene will ensure food is safe, reduce waste, reduce complaints, make for a better work environment, increase job satisfaction, increase productivity and protect the reputation of the business.

At a glance below is a list of your responsibilities as a supervisor with regard to personal hygiene in the workplace.

• Train, instruct, motivate (provide feedback) and effective supervision.
• Effective communication (policy and rules), e.g. one-to-one/groups/written instructions/posters.
• Lead by example especially handwashing and wearing clean protective clothing/use of lockers.
• Provide adequate resources/facilities (clean and satisfactory).
• Ensure systems are in place for soap/towel/first-aid replenishment and protective clothing provision and replacement.
• Monitor – visual checks/competency testing/swabbing.
• Exclude food handlers (illness or condition) if food is exposed to the risk of contamination.
• Take corrective action, e.g. retrain/warn/dismiss.