By Anastasiia Shovkoplias
A pub and four diners in Camden have received the lowest possible rating for the food hygiene this year, which was carried out by Food Standards Agency. This alarming news made the places receive 0 stars out of the of five-star rating system, showing a serious lack of cleanliness and food standards.
This follows a report earlier this year, when another borough in London – Waltham Forest – was revealed to have the most eateries with the least possible food hygiene rating – a whopping 15.6 percent. All of the inspections were conducted by the Food Standards Agency, which found severe deficiencies in food handling and overall hygiene. Local authorities took swift action to to ensure the violators cleaned up their acts, ensuring that people won’t be affected by the poor standards.
Meanwhile, on Holloway Road, the issue of quality and food hygiene is varied. Workers in some of locals’ most favourite local places discuss how they manage to make sure that every dish served in local cafes and restaurants meets the necessary, if not the highest, safety standards.
Owner of local Ecuadorean restaurant El Rincon Quiteno, Alex Torres, said they prioritise the safety and health of their customers above all, and that keeping up safe hygiene standards is no joke. The business received a 3-star rating (out of five stars) – generally satisfactory -in November, 2023.
“We keep up with health and safety, we do food hygiene – all the food is nicely prepared and saved in fridges and freezers as well. Everything goes nice and silky.”
When talking about sanitisation and cleaning the kitchen equipment and surfaces, Torres said that it’s being done every night after work. He and his team ensure that all of the fridges and equipment are working efficiently to ensure the safety of food, which is always stored at the correct temperature.
“We check our food carefully, the hot food always stays hot and cold food stays cold,” he said. “We have to make sure everything stays clean, we always have an inspector coming every few weeks.”
Time to recycle
But apart from food hygiene and the kitchen staying clean, food waste is also a big problem for the places to encounter. So when it comes to food waste, the owner of El Rincon adds that the chef is in charge of throwing away the waste in all the right bags, as they use the special bags from the council:.
“Everything is separated, food goes in the food waste and we do recycling,” he said, adding that this helps also to prevent cross-contamination and food violations in the kitchen.
Ensuring high standards of hygiene is necessary to protect public health and restore trust among locals. With that, the most popular pub of the local students on Holloway Road – The Rocket – follows strict standards to ensure that their customers stay safe. Its sister eatery, the Junction (which is temporarily closed) last received a five-star rating in February, 2019.
Rocket worker Oku Eka, said that health and safety issues are being addressed every day. “We always keep all the surfaces really clean, we always check if the food is presentable as well. Because if we have something that doesn’t look so good, we will take it off and throw it away.
“At the end of the day, how I see it is: How would I feel if I bought something somewhere and it doesn’t look good and I’m not going to buy it myself? So me, personally, I do take it into consideration.”
Right Temperature
Oku admits, that all eateries need to check their food temperatures to keep every person safe. Hot food must stay hot and cold food must stay cold to stop germs from growing. Checking the temperature to helps make sure the food is safe to eat, meets health rules, and keeps people happy and healthy.
“We always check the temperatures as well every day to make sure that the temperatures are at the safe level. We got temperature markers in the fridges. If the fridge is over four degrees, we will take everything out or try to sort it out and move it in the fridge that’s better,” he explained.
“We throw away anything that’s out of date. We check the date. And when something is going to expire on the day today we also will just throw it away.”
“We always make sure that we keep the food hygiene in our best interest. No problems whatsoever.”
Despite the huge efforts that all the places put together to give and provide the best service, there are always challenges. Some factors include staff turnover, the pressure of a busy kitchen and uncareful visitors, which can lead to lapses.
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