Working with food carries serious responsibility: what you prepare, serve or sell can make the people who eat it ill. The law that applies in Portugal rests mainly on European Union regulations. This lesson shows which ones they are, who enforces them and what the law asks of the food handler and of the employer.
The main rules
- Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 (the General Food Law). Only safe food may reach the consumer (article 14). Responsibility lies with the operator of the business (article 17). It requires traceability, that is, knowing who you bought from and who you supplied (article 18), and the withdrawal from the market of unsafe food, with notice to the authorities (article 19).
- Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 (hygiene of foodstuffs). It applies to all businesses in the sector, from a restaurant to a kiosk. Annex II brings together the requirements: premises, equipment, waste, water, personal hygiene, food, packaging and training.
- Regulation (EC) No 853/2004: specific rules for foods of animal origin, such as meat, fish, milk and eggs.
- Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 (food information for consumers), including allergens. Decreto-Lei n.º 26/2016 (a Portuguese decree-law) supplements it in Portugal for non-prepacked food, such as that served in restaurants and canteens.
Who enforces it
- ASAE (Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica, the Food and Economic Safety Authority) inspects establishments and enforces compliance with the law. Inspections are, as a rule, made without prior notice. The law provides for fines and other penalties.
- DGAV (Direção-Geral de Alimentação e Veterinária, the Directorate-General for Food and Veterinary Affairs) is the competent authority for food safety.
- Trade associations publish good practice guides, for voluntary use, which help with compliance. The values in this course come from the Código de Boas Práticas para a Restauração (Code of Good Practice for Catering) of AIHSA (the Algarve hotel and catering trade association). They are guidance, not articles of law.
What the law asks of the food handler
A food handler is anyone who touches food, utensils, surfaces or packaging that come into contact with it. The law asks you to:
- maintain a high degree of personal cleanliness and wear suitable, clean clothing (Annex II, Chapter VIII);
- tell the manager if you have an illness that can be passed on through food, for example diarrhoea or infected wounds, and not handle food while there is a risk of contamination;
- follow the establishment's procedures and fill in the records at the time;
- report any anomaly: a broken fridge, a pest, a suspicious food.
What the law says about training
Annex II, Chapter XII, of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 says that the operator must ensure that:
- staff who handle food are supervised and have adequate instruction and/or training in hygiene, for their duties;
- those who develop and maintain the HACCP system have had adequate training in applying the HACCP principles;
- the requirements of national legislation on training programmes in certain sectors are met.
The key word is adequate: it depends on the job. The general law does not set a number of hours or require the training to be given by a specific training body. It can be a course, training in the workplace or written instructions. The operator should keep records of the training, to show to the authorities: the Code of Good Practice for Catering recommends this.
A sector with its own rules
For the distribution and sale of meat and meat-based products, Decreto-Lei n.º 147/2006 requires training in food hygiene and safety given by a body accepted under vocational training law, and provides for a meat handler card. Anyone working in that sector should check what applies to their case with DGAV or the employer.
Key points
- Food safety is the operator's responsibility, but each food handler does their part.
- ASAE enforces; DGAV is the competent authority.
- Training must be suited to the duties, and it is advisable to record it.
- Ill? Tell your manager before you start work.