The People Who Protect Your Plate
Food Safety Week 2018 #ProtectingYourPlate
Cath Arnold and Carol Godding are owners of Extra Help Wirral where they offer a home help and domestic cleaning service. Their main aim is to make a difference to people’s lives: supporting elderly people in their own homes, and allowing busy people to spend more time with family and friends. Although they provide a wide range of extra help services for those with young children and the elderly they find that meal preparation and help for catering for home-held parties and special occasions are two services which are becoming increasingly popular.
So how do Carol and Cath protect people’s plates? Carol says...
“First off we make sure that all our home helpers are personally interviewed and are DBS and reference checked. After all they will be working from our client’s homes. Extra Help is a nationally available Franchise business and the Franchisor also makes Food Hygiene and Safety courses available to every Franchisee and their helpers.
Secondly, as part of our procedures when we start working with a client we thoroughly check on any allergies, intolerances and specific nutritional requirements they may have. Often we are preparing meals for children and elderly people and even if there are no known allergies or intolerances we need to ensure that food is the right consistency, portions are of the right size, seasoning is moderated and recipes will offer a nutritionally balanced diet and be enjoyable to eat. We also think about how we can fortify some common foods to improve their nutritional and calorific value and deal with fussy eaters.”
One of the challenges that Carol and Cath face is that they are preparing meals in their client’s homes and they are restricted by that environment. Cath says...
“We have a role to play gently educating around good food safety practice and we have to do everything we can within their home, and using the equipment at hand, to ensure the food we prepare is safe. We are often asked to do their shopping but not always. We will clean the meal preparation areas as well as being deliberate about our own hygiene. However, we have been known to label shelves, re-order food stock in cupboards and remove out of date foodstuffs. We will also clean and re-organise fridges to ensure that cross contamination cannot occur and explain why we have done that to keep our clients safe.”
Hazel Langley, owner of food hygiene and safety training provider Induction Junction and campaign partner to the Food Standards Agency said:
“I have been working with Extra Help since early 2017 as I supply the food hygiene and safety training for them. I think how their company ethos, how they work and what they do to help older people stay independent at home is remarkable. They really are on the front-line and show creativity when it comes to protecting plates.”