Is Audit of Employee Canteen Food within the scope of OHSAS 18001?

Chennaiite

Never-say-die
Trusted Information Resource
An Organization serves Food for its Employees in the Canteen. Does OHSAS 18001 obligates the Organization to audit quality of this food periodically? If so, could you help me with the relevant requirement?
Thanks in advance
 

Randy

Super Moderator
Depends, but the Yes's outweigh the No's.....Simple, this is something that there can be control over or influence of, there are identified hazards and potential risks, employee's are potentially exposed and it's inside the fence line.
 

somashekar

Leader
Admin
control over or influence of
identified hazards and potential risks
employee's are potentially exposed
inside the fence line.

Such right words used by Randy.
OHSAS 18k sets the direction. Audit of food quality can be a response action.
The plan can be right from the 4.3.1 a) routine activity
The response coming from the 4.4.6 Operational controls
 
K

kgott

An Organization serves Food for its Employees in the Canteen. Does OHSAS 18001 obligates the Organization to audit quality of this food periodically? If so, could you help me with the relevant requirement?
Thanks in advance

Perhaps Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point - HACCP, or parts of it, may apply to your kitchen operations. HACCP is a food safety standard

 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Leader
Admin
It doesn't need to be difficult. A good start would be controlling temperatures of hot boxes, refrigerators and salad bars. By the way, I would extend this consideration to employee refrigerators. Even a simple off-the-shelf thermometer is better than nothing.
:2cents:
 
A

Alpine

I would have thought the answer to that is no to audit of canteen food. The food aspect would be covered by HACCP or what ever food safety regulations the canteen has to comply with. The OHSAS is different. The canteen needs to ensure that they have measures in place to ensure the safety of customers and employees in that area e.g. appropriate manual handling, PPE, housekeeping, etc. Normally this could carried out via a checklist for that particular area.
 
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John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
An Organization serves Food for its Employees in the Canteen. Does OHSAS 18001 obligates the Organization to audit quality of this food periodically? If so, could you help me with the relevant requirement?
Thanks in advance

Chennanite,

Yes, the food prep processes are essential to the ongoing health and well-being of the employees.

By involving the employees in health and safety management, I am surprised the organization would not have included their canteen's processes and controls to prevent sickness and ill-health.

Indeed, this lack of involvement may also be evidence of a deeper nonconformity.

John
 

Randy

Super Moderator
Looking at H&R would also require adding the "Roach Coach" if you have off-site vendors that come on for breaks and lunch....It's all right there in 4.3.1
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Leader
Admin
Let us go farther. It is not unreasonable to check around to see if pesticides or cleaners are stored next to food stuffs or utensils, and if they have a program for monitoring expiration dates and managing food recalls.

HACCP can be used as a guide, but not a standard because you're subject to OHSAS 18001 instead. It makes sense to use due diligence as the kitchen in your workplace probably isn't subject to county health inspections.
 

Chennaiite

Never-say-die
Trusted Information Resource
Thank you all.
I am sure such controls are of paramount importance, especially when it comes to Health matters. Unfortunately, sometimes it requires to pin point a set of words from the standard to convince guys easily. That was precisely the reason why I was looking for some requirement that can be interpreted to the controls on stuff prepared in the canteen (could be too specific to expect though). OHSAS has never been my cup of tea, just a colleague of mine came to me with this query and apparently I turned towards the best information resource I knew.
 
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