Food Hygiene Regulations in Singapore

nea

In Singapore, food hygiene is monitored by the National Environment Agency (NEA). All food retail businesses must be registered to the NEA and regulated by the organization to prove that any food sold or produced by the food retail businesses is safe for consumption (retail businesses include restaurants, cafes, and more but excludes hawker centres).

Grading System

The NEA grades food service establishments based on personal and food hygiene and housekeeping of the premises. The grade must be displayed somewhere within the premises where it can be visible to the public. This is a method for the NEA to encourage establishments to improve their grade by adopting better practices. The assessment of the premises by the NEA results in the following grades:

  • A – a score of 85% or higher
  • B – a score of 70% to 84%
  • C – a score of 50% to 69%
  • D – a score of 40% to 49%

In order to help food service establishments to improve their cleanliness, the NEA has published the Food Handler’s Handbook and other practices and guiding materials.

Points Demerit System (PDS)

The PDS system is used in order to establish precedence for revoking licenses. Offences are categorized as minor, major and serious. Offences lead to demerit points. If an establishment collects 12 demerit points within 12 months, the establishment can be suspended for 2 to 4 weeks or its license can be revoked based on previous records. However this is a general guideline. The punishment differs for the type of establishment. For example, coffeeshops, food courts and canteens that accumulate 12 points over 12 months will be suspended for three days. Here is a detailed list of offences and the demerit points that they cost.

Food Handlers

The term food handlers refers to any person who is directly involved with food preparation: like the chefs, sous chefs, kitchen assistants, staff that handles beverages. Food handlers need to be registered by the NEA. As the owner of the establishment, you need to register all food handlers by filling up this form and submitting it to the nearest Regional Office. To find your nearest Regional Office, you must call 1800-2255 632 (1800-CALL NEA). In order to qualify as a food handler, a basic food hygiene course must be completed. The Food & Beverage Workforce Skills Qualification (WSQ) takes 6 hours of course work and 1.5 hours of assessment. Upon completion of assessment, the food handles will be given a Statement of Attainment. There are 2 subsequent refresher training sessions after 5 years and 10 years. The details on refresher training are on this page.

Food Safety Management System (FSMS)

The FSMS is used to ensure that manufacture, distribution and storage of food is safe for consumption. Every food service establishment must have an FSMS plan. The components of the plan are the following:

1. FSMS Plan 

a.    Flow diagram: with Critical Control Points identified

b.    Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points: charts for Critical Control Points (CCPs)

2. “WSQ Apply Food Safety Management System for Food Service Establishments Certificate (Statement of Attainment)

For more information on the FSMS and the requirements for your FSMS plan, click here. The link also gives information on different rules for new caterers and caterers that need to renew their license.

Finally, the NEA along with Spring Singapore has created a Singapore Standard for food service establishments so that they can make their FSMS plans by referring to the guideline. The guideline is $42 and can be purchased here. The process of creating the FSMS plan involves a workshop which includes 14 hours of course work and 5 hours of assessment.

That sums up the brief introduction to food hygiene regulations in Singapore. Hope that helps!

Executive Interview: Rob Nixon, CEO & Founder of PANALITIX

Rob NixonRob Nixon is the CEO and Founder of PANALITIX, a software as a service (SaaS) platform that provides analytical accounting data from small businesses to accountants around the world. Rob does a lot of education work in Australia and New Zealand with accountants and showing them how/why to outsource to the Philippines. We did a question and answer with Rob about his experience with the Philippines.

1. Can you tell me a bit more about yourself and your business? 
  • PANALITIX is a software as a service (SaaS) that provides analytical accounting data from small businesses to Accountants around the world
  • I have been working with Accountants for 21 years yet I m not one – I left school when I was 16
  • This is my 8th company and by far the most exciting
  • I educate Accountants on how to run a better business and how they can help their clients run better businesses
  • I constantly tell accountants they need to outsource repetitive tasks to lower cost labour in developing countries
  • I have been outsourcing to India for 4 years and the Philippines for 2 years.
2. Why do Aussie’s outsource to the Philippines?
  • We love the time zone difference – 2 hours
  • We love the English speaking abilities
  • We love the abundance of labour
  • We love the cost benefit – Australia is 5 times more expensive for the same task when all costs are added
3. What are the benefits? 
  • Definitely cost – 5 times difference
  • Eagerness to work – the Philippine team member wants to work and they work hard
  • easy to get along with
  • The service culture means they want to serve and please their customers
4. What are some of the downsides you have seen with outsourcing?
  • if you don’t train the new team or give them clear instructions if will not work
  • you have to initially travel to get the team up and running*

(*Note: Check out our other post about Mike O’Hagan’s Manila tours)

5. What are some of the best practices others should follow?
  • create good systems so the worker knows what to do
  • have good quality IT so solid communication can take place quickly
  • have 100% of systems cloud based – no transfer of files.
6. Do you suggest your clients start outsourcing to a company? or setup their own Philippine company?
  • Not initially. Go through a BPO and get the hang of working with a remote team.
  • Then when the team is 20+ think about incorporating.
  • If you’re going to have a team over 10 people there needs to be management in place to keep them working
7. You talk about “future proofing” – how can more people learn about future proofing their businesses?  
  • My latest seminar tour is in Australia and New Zealand in July & August. Covering 12 cities.
  • It is designed for Accounting firms and their team members
  • Full day workshop on how to to future proof the accounting firm and remain relevant.

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#MyClock iOS App Updated

PayrollHero MyClock DTR Time Device

The PayrollHero #MyClock iOS app has been updated in the Apple app store. There are quite a few changes to the app, most noticeably is the design. The overall look has been updated as well as some new functionality.

Screen Shot 2015-06-23 at 11.19.31 AMThe #MyClock iOS app is designed for individual employee use. The app shows an employee their upcoming and past schedules, their clock in and out data, the clock photos as well as lets them require a change to their schedule or notify of an absent.

Interested to know more about how PayrollHero works? Check out our website or reach out to our team and we would be pleased to give you a free one on one demo of the platform as well as the features and benefits.

Visit the Apple app store for the #MyClock app