FOOD AND FOOD HYGIENE POLICY

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Food Safety Hazards
3. Good Food Hygiene
4. Food Storage
5. Fridge Organisation
6. Dietary Requirements
7. Allergies and Intolerances
8. Feeding Babies
9. Introducing Foods Chart
10. Safe Food Preparation
11. Managing meal times

Introduction

The Crown Nursery is inspected by Environmental health to ensure health and hygiene standards are being met.  Staff are committed to ensuring that safe and healthy practices around the storage, preparation and service of food are maintained throughout the setting. 

All staff handling food are appropriately trained and we make use of guidance published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

Our aim is to meet dietary and cultural requirements, to provide children with a range of nutritious, healthy and well-balanced snacks and meals, which promote children’s growth and development.

Food Safety Hazards

Staff at The Crown Nursery are aware of potential food safety hazards and procedures are in place to ensure all potential risks are well managed.  Food safety hazards include:

• Physical hazards: glass fragments, dust, pests
• Chemical: cleaning products, insecticides
• Biological: poor personal hygiene, poor storage
• Allergenic risk: cross-contamination

Good Food Hygiene

At The Crown Nursery we adopt a number of practices to ensure we maintain good food hygiene.  These practices can be categorised under the ‘four c’s:

Cross-contamination

To prevent cross-contamination of produce we:

• Ensure food has been delivered safely and that the packaging is still sealed
• Always wash hands with anti-bacterial soap and hot water before and after handling food, using the toilet or changing nappies.
• Wash all surfaces and chopping boards with disinfectant
• Use clean, disposable cloths
• Store food correctly (see additional notes on food storage)
• Do not participate in food preparation if unwell
• Wear correct clothing eg. aprons, gloves
• Make sure all fruit and vegetables are washed before being served.
• Avoid wearing jewellery, especially rings, watches and bracelets
• Cover any cuts, spots or sores on the hands and arms with a waterproof dressing
• Making regular checks to ensure there is no evidence of pests or an insect infestation

Cleaning

It is crucial for the health and safety of all children and adults that the nursery is cleaned regularly and to a high standard.  Healthy practices are also put in place, these include:

• All hands must be washed before and after handling food
• Children are to wash their hands before and after eating
• All surfaces, chopping boards and equipment are washed before and after use to kill bacteria
• Ensuring all storage units, kitchen drawers, the fridge and freezer are cleaned regularly

Chilling

Storing food properly helps stop harmful bacteria from growing.  At The Crown Nursery we adopt a range of systems to ensure our food is delivered and stored safely and ready for consumption.  These include:

• Using a reputable, well established food provider (The Professional Nursery Kitchen)
• Checking food is properly chilled on delivery
• Putting food in the correct storage place immediately eg. fridge, freezer, cupboard
• Storing food correctly in the fridge and in cupboards
• Checking the daily temperature of the fridge, freezer and in the internal kitchen area

Cooking

In order to ensure food is safe for consumption it must be cooked properly.  This helps kill harmful bacteria

• Consistently check the use by dates on all products
• Consistently check the cooking instructions and ensure they are maintained
• Ensure food is cooked through properly before serving

Food Storage

Inadequate storage can result in cross-contamination, food spoilage and the build-up of potentially harmful bacteria.  All food must be examined carefully to ensure that it is ready for consumption before being prepared, cooked and served.  At The Crown Nursery we adopt a range of practices to ensure food is stored safely.  These include:

• Ensuring the storage area is well ventilated and well lit
• Ensuring food items are well rotated, so older items are eaten first
• Storing non-perishables together eg. cereals, dry pasta, bread, biscuits
• Ensuring the fridge temperature is consistently below 5 degrees
• Ensuring the freezer temperature is consistently below -18 degrees

Fridge and freezer temperatures are checked and recorded on a daily basis to ensure the correct temperature is being upheld.

Fridge Organisation

It is essential that food is stored correctly in the fridge to prevent cross-contamination.  Food should be stored in the following way as much as possible:

• Top shelf: ready to eat foods (dairy)
• Middle shelf: cooked meats
• Bottom shelf: raw meat
• Drawers: fruit and salad

Dietary Requirements

The Crown Nursery will maintain strong relationships with parents and children to ensure all dietary requirements are met.  These may include choices based on:

• Food preferences
• Age of child
• Stage of child
• Religion
• Culture
• Food related conditions

Allergies and Intolerances

The nursery caters for all children’s specific dietary needs.  These are established at registration and include allergies and/or food intolerances.  Staff are made aware of children’s specialist requirements and some children may require individual care plans to keep them healthy and safe.  To help us manage the risks associated with food allergies or intolerances the nursery will;

• Gather information from parents at registration
• Establish the level of risk associated with the allergy/intolerance eg. low, moderate, severe
• Ensure all allergies and intolerances are known to all staff by displaying these in the kitchen area
• Maintain excellent food hygiene practices
• If necessary provide children with individual placemats detailing with food related conditions

Feeding Babies

Babies are weaned at approximately 6 months old.  This begins the process of moving from solely milk, to the consumption of a wide range of nutritious, healthy foods.  There are a range of things to consider when feeding a baby:

• Baby’s should always sit up while eating
• Baby’s should never be left unsupervised
• Baby’s food should be blended or mashed to their preferred consistency
• Do not hurry the child when eating—allow plenty of time for meals
• Meal times should be a happy, calm experience
• Only put a small amount of food on the tray at a time
• Avoid round, firm foods and large chunks
• Ensure food is cut and prepared appropriately (see food chart)
• Avoid stringy foods like string beans and celery
• Offer only a few pieces of food at a time
• Cut meat and poultry across the grain, and into tiny fingertip-sized pieces
• Food pieces should be no larger than one-half inch in any direction. If in doubt, cut food into smaller pieces
• Baby’s should never be forced to eat any food

Introducing foods Chart

	From 6 months	From 7 months	From 8 months	From 12 months	From 2-3 years
Fruit	Most fruit & veg. needs cooking and should be pureed Fruits that don’t need cooking include; cucumber, avocado, melon, soft peaches, bananas Frozen veg can be microwaved and blended	Introduce mashed citrus fruits, berries, pineapple and kiwi	Ripe, soft fruit for finger food	All fruits	Whole unpeeled fruit
Vegetables	Pureed root vegetables and sweetcorn	Puree or mash root vegetables	Broccoli and other finger foods	All vegetables
Carbohydrates	Baby rice Pureed potatoes	Puree or mash potatoes and  chickpeas Porridge	Whole bread Brown rice Buckwheat noodles Pasta	All cargohydrates
Protein		Yogurts Eggs Cheese Fish Chilcken Meat		Cow’s milk
Omega 3		Mackerel Salmon Tuna Ground seeds; sunflower, pumpkin
Other				Honey

 

Safe Food Preparation

Type of food	How to prepare for young children
Grapes	Should always be cut up into quarters
Satsumas	Peeled, the stringy bits should be removed and each segment checked for pips. Then each segment cut into thirds.
Apples	Skin should be removed for younger children
Mango, pineapple	Should be cut into strips for younger children to hold

Managing Meal Times

At The Crown Nursery our core values feed into everything we do.  We believe meal times should be part of the enjoyment of the nursery day, providing an opportunity to develop the skills required to feed ourselves and to then use a knife and fork.  They offer time to relax and all come together, to be sociable and share our discoveries and learning experiences.   Children are sat together, with staff, and enjoy time away from play to delight in the delicious, healthy food, and to build meaningful, caring relationships with each other.