Food hygiene training

If you are responsible for developing and maintaining your business's food safety management procedures, you are legally required to have received adequate food hygiene training to enable you to do this.

Food business operators are also required by law to ensure that food handlers receive appropriate supervision and food hygiene training and instruction, in line with their work activity, and should enable them to handle food safely.

In the UK, food handlers don't have to hold a food hygiene training certificate to prepare or sell food, although many food businesses will prefer that they do.

The necessary skills may be obtained through:

• On-the-job training
• Self-study
• Relevant prior experience
• Online training course
• Classroom training course

Food hygiene training certificates

UK food hygiene certificates don't have an expiry date. It is left to the discretion of the food business operator or Environmental Health Officer to decide whether a refresher course is needed. We would generally recommend that food hygiene refresher training is undertaken every three years.

We do not provide food hygiene training, however there are many food hygiene training courses available online or in a taught class room environment that will provide training certificates once a level of competence is attained. 

It is recommended that food handlers undertake Level 2 Food Hygiene and Safety training. Managers of food businesses, or those involved with complex processes, may require greater knowledge and training to Level 3. Providers of training courses can be easily found using an online search engine.