Food Safety & Hygiene for Catering Supervisors

When something goes wrong with food, the first question an Environmental Health Officer asks isn’t who cooked it. It’s who was in charge. This course is for the person who has to answer that.

Food handler training teaches an individual to work safely. This course is a step up in kind, not just in number. It is about designing the food safety system that keeps a whole team safe, monitoring it day to day, and being able to prove you did everything right if an inspector, an insurer or a court ever asks.

Who it’s for

• Head chefs, sous chefs and kitchen managers
• Supervisors, team leaders and duty managers
• Owners, and whoever actually holds the HACCP plan
• Experienced food handlers stepping up to a supervisory role
• We assume you already know the food handler basics

What you’ll come away able to do

• Explain your legal duties, an EHO’s powers, and how the due-diligence defence actually works
• Read the microbiology behind an outbreak, from spores and toxins to the FAT TOM growth conditions
• Control physical, chemical, biological and allergenic hazards across a busy service
• Hold the critical temperatures for cooking, chilling, hot-holding and reheating
• Build, monitor and verify a HACCP plan using all seven principles
• Take control of your supply chain, from approving a supplier to turning a delivery away
• Lay out premises and workflow so the separation you designed survives a busy service
• Supervise cleaning, disinfection and pest control, and decide when someone is fit to work
• Induct, train, supervise and audit a team, and prove their competence on paper
• Run the system day to day: monitoring, verification, records and the due-diligence file
• Handle an inspection, understand how the rating is scored, and use your right to reply or appeal
• Take a complaint, investigate an allegation of food poisoning, and judge a withdrawal or a recall

How the course works

Thirteen lessons, each split into six short topics with a practice game at the end to lock the ideas in. Every lesson finishes with its own 10-question assessment, pulled at random from a bank of 20, so no two attempts are the same (80% to pass, three goes at each). The course finishes with a 25-question final exam drawn from a pool of 60. Pass, and your personalised CPD-standard certificate, with a verifiable reference code, is issued on the spot and saved to My Account → Certificates.

Access runs for 12 months, on any device, with your certificate ready to download the moment you finish.

Worth being clear about: this is a knowledge course written for supervisors. It gives you the expertise to design and run a food safety management system. It does not replace your own written HACCP plan, your Safer Food Better Business pack, or a regulated qualification where one is specifically required.

Course content

• Welcome & how this course worksLesson
• Supervisory Responsibilities & the LawLesson
• The cost of getting it wrong, and the EHO’s powersTopic
• The due-diligence defenceTopic
• How enforcement actually unfoldsTopic
• What it actually costs to get it wrongTopic
• Building the due-diligence file: what actually goes in itTopic
• Keeping the file current: who owns itTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Does it prove due diligence?Topic
• Lesson Assessment: Supervisory Responsibilities & the LawQuiz
• Advanced Microbiology & PathogensLesson
• Bacteria, spores and toxinsTopic
• Growth conditions and the pathogens that matterTopic
• The pathogens that actually matterTopic
• Viruses and parasites: when it isn’t bacteria at allTopic
• Why ‘it smells fine’ proves nothingTopic
• High-risk food, and who it hurts mostTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Help or stop bacteria growing?Topic
• Lesson Assessment: Advanced Microbiology & PathogensQuiz
• Contamination Hazards & ControlsLesson
• The four types of hazardTopic
• Biological hazards and cross-contaminationTopic
• Physical hazards in a working kitchenTopic
• Chemical hazards in a working kitchenTopic
• Allergens from a supervisor’s chairTopic
• Separation in practiceTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Which type of hazard?Topic
• Lesson Assessment: Contamination Hazards & ControlsQuiz
• Temperature ControlLesson
• The danger zone and safe coolingTopic
• The critical temperaturesTopic
• Cooking and checking the coreTopic
• Hot holding and serviceTopic
• Chilling, freezing and defrostingTopic
• Reheating, and getting the probe reading rightTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Safe, or in the danger zone?Topic
• Lesson Assessment: Temperature ControlQuiz
• The Principles of HACCPLesson
• What HACCP is, and why prerequisites come firstTopic
• The seven principlesTopic
• Hazard analysis: principle one, properly doneTopic
• Finding your critical control pointsTopic
• Critical limits that mean somethingTopic
• Keeping the plan alive: validation and reviewTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Put the 7 HACCP principles in orderTopic
• Lesson Assessment: The Principles of HACCPQuiz
• From Supplier to ServiceLesson
• Your supplier is a control, not a purchaseTopic
• Checking a delivery: accept, reject, recordTopic
• Storage, stock rotation and first in, first outTopic
• Use by, best before, and why the difference is legalTopic
• Traceability: one step back, one step forwardTopic
• Withdrawal and recall: acting on bad newsTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Accept or reject this delivery?Topic
• Lesson Assessment: From Supplier to ServiceQuiz
• Premises, Equipment and WorkflowLesson
• Layout and the dirty-to-clean flowTopic
• Surfaces and equipment: what “easy to clean” means in lawTopic
• Handwashing, sinks and water supplyTopic
• Waste, drainage, ventilation and lightingTopic
• Designing out pestsTopic
• The supervisor’s walk-round of the buildingTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Sort the kitchen into the flowTopic
• Lesson Assessment: Premises, Equipment and WorkflowQuiz
• Cleaning, Pest Control & PeopleLesson
• The six stages of cleaningTopic
• Pests, premises and fitness to workTopic
• Cleaning chemicals and the supervisor’s dutyTopic
• Dilution rates and contact timeTopic
• Cleaning schedules that actually get doneTopic
• Pests: signs, prevention and contractorsTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Put the 6 stages of cleaning in orderTopic
• Lesson Assessment: Cleaning, Pest Control & PeopleQuiz
• Building a Competent TeamLesson
• The legal training standard: commensurate with the jobTopic
• Induction: what happens before anyone touches foodTopic
• Training evidence and the staff file: what actually proves competenceTopic
• Refresher training: setting an interval the law does not fixTopic
• Fitness to work: symptoms, exclusion and the 48-hour ruleTopic
• Supervising agency, temporary and young staffTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Before they touch foodTopic
• Lesson Assessment: Building a Competent TeamQuiz
• Running the System Day to DayLesson
• Opening and closing checks: the daily monitoring routineTopic
• Monitoring versus verification: checking the food, checking the checkerTopic
• Corrective action: what to do, and who is allowed to do itTopic
• The diary: what good records actually look likeTopic
• “Prove it”: using and calibrating the probeTopic
• The four-weekly review: standing back from the diaryTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Monitoring or verification?Topic
• Lesson Assessment: Running the System Day to DayQuiz
• Training, Supervising and Auditing Your TeamLesson
• Coaching a correction: turning a mistake into a fixTopic
• Running an internal food safety auditTopic
• Root-cause investigation: what really went wrongTopic
• Feedback that actually changes behaviourTopic
• Building a food safety cultureTopic
• When someone won’t complyTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Put the coaching steps in orderTopic
• Lesson Assessment: Training, Supervising and Auditing Your TeamQuiz
• The Inspection and the RatingLesson
• What actually happens on the dayTopic
• How the rating is actually worked outTopic
• What earns confidence in managementTopic
• The notices, and what each one actually doesTopic
• Right to reply, appeal and re-ratingTopic
• Scotland, Wales and Northern IrelandTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Sort the scoreTopic
• Lesson Assessment: The Inspection and the RatingQuiz
• When Something Goes WrongLesson
• Quality complaint or safety complaint: why it matters who you tellTopic
• Taking a complaint properlyTopic
• An allegation of food poisoningTopic
• Foreign bodiesTopic
• Withdrawal or recall: the decision and the conversationTopic
• What happens afterTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Withdraw, recall, or both?Topic
• Lesson Assessment: When Something Goes WrongQuiz
• Course summary & what nextLesson
• Final Exam — Food Safety & Hygiene for Catering SupervisorsQuiz