Health & Hygiene Requirements for Food Handlers (Show all)

Food handlers must, whenever washing their hands:

• use the hand washing facilities provided;
• thoroughly clean their hands using liquid soap and warm running water; and
• thoroughly dry their hands on a single use towel (see Standard 3.2.2 cl 15(4) of the Code).

Food handlers are prohibited from using sinks that have been allocated for purposes other than hand washing. For example food preparation sinks should not be used for hand washing as this may cause the sink to become contaminated and the safety of the food could be compromised.

Soap helps remove grease, dirt and transient bacteria from hands. Food handlers must use liquid soap to wash their hands. The use of hand sanitiser or bar soap is not an acceptable means of hand washing.

There is no set temperature for ‘warm’ running water, however approximately 40oC is considered appropriate.

To reduce the presence of bacteria food handlers are required to thoroughly dry their hands after hand washing. It is not sufficient for food handlers to give their hands a quick wipe with a reusable towel. Recent studies have found that single-use paper towels can dry hands efficiently, remove bacteria effectively, and cause less contamination of the washroom environment. For hygiene reasons, paper towels are superior to air dryers; therefore, paper towel is required for hand drying. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538484/)

Single-use towels include disposable towels as well as reusable towels. However, if reusable towels are used for hand drying, they can only be used once and must be washed and dried before being reused.