When working in the food delivery business, it is essential to follow some basic rules to ensure the food's safety from the restaurant to the customer. This applies to all food delivery services, whether through independent contractors or restaurant staff. This article discusses the necessary precautions for delivering food safely through the LOKE platform.

Health condition: When delivering food, it is crucial to be aware of your health condition. If you are suffering from a contagious virus or any medical symptoms such as open sores, eye infections, or skin conditions, you should not work until at least 48 hours after the symptoms end.

Avoiding contamination: Use a thermal bag or approved packaging to transport food, and keep it separated from anything that could contaminate it. Ensure that the bags provided keep orders separate, as cross-contamination would put customers' health at risk. If an order spills, dispose of any contaminated food and contact the support team to get the order remade.

Personal hygiene: Maintain good personal hygiene by wearing clean clothing and keeping long hair tied up. Wash your hands thoroughly as often as possible, especially before starting work and after using the toilet, sneezing, coughing, smoking, or cleaning. When washing hands, wet your hands with warm water and antibacterial soap, create a lather, wash thoroughly, rinse, and dry with paper towels or a hand dryer.

Hygiene of equipment: Clean your scooter, bike, delivery equipment, and thermal bags with food-safe chemicals, and always read the manufacturer's instructions. Use chemicals that are suitable for food surfaces, and keep them away from food and drinks. If you find evidence of pests, clean all contact surfaces before carrying any food or drinks.

Food spillage: In case of food spillage, get the order remade. Clean all equipment thoroughly with disinfectant after such an incident.

Safety first: To ensure customer safety, it is essential to maintain excellent food hygiene standards, hold the correct licenses to sell regulated or age-restricted items, tag age-restricted items as such, display allergen and nutritional information, and have trained staff to respond to telephone queries about allergens. Always remember that safety comes first.

Minimum Rating Requirements:

A minimum rating of 2 is required by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to be able to list a food business on a third-party platform, unless the business falls under an Exception.

Overview:

The FSA mandates local authorities to conduct food hygiene inspections, and rates businesses between 0 to 5 based on their hygiene standards. This rating system provides customers with clear information about a business’s food hygiene standards. Some third-party platforms require businesses to have a rating of at least 2 to be listed on their platform, unless they are exempted. Food businesses with ratings below 2 may be removed from the platform unless an Exception applies.

We source and maintain this information directly from the UK Food Standards Agency, and partners failing below a Rating of 2 will therefore be removed from the platform except where an Exception applies.

In case you notice any discrepancies or have reason to believe that the rating listed is inaccurate, you should verify the information with your local authority and the FSA, and try to resolve the issue with your local authority.

Independent Audit:

In case a food business fails to achieve the minimum hygiene rating, an independent food safety auditor, such as SureFoot Solutions, may offer an onsite inspection for a fee. The onsite inspection involves a targeted assessment of areas that local authorities may raise concerns about in the next inspection, support to address any issues raised, a feedback session, and an indicative hygiene rating.

Policy On Allergens

This policy outlines the standards that our partners must meet to sell their products on our platform, with regard to allergens. The responsibility sits with the partner food brands and it is their responsibility to seek legal advice when communicating, preparing and delivering food to customers and via 3rd parties. The following is simply a guide and does not constitute legal advice.

Purpose:

Ensuring customer safety is a top priority for us, and we expect our partners to share this commitment. For people living with allergies, accurate information about the ingredients and preparation of meals is crucial to ensure their safety. This policy sets out the standards that we expect our partners to meet in order to sell their products on our platform.

What we expect from our partners:

Our partners are responsible for ensuring that the products they sell are safe and comply with applicable laws. If they are unsure about any legal requirements, they should seek advice from an expert.

These are the standards that we expect our partners to meet:

In-app information: We expect our partners to provide clear information about the allergens present in their products, including information about ingredients and cooking methods.

Allergen information by telephone: Our partners must train their staff to respond to telephone queries about allergens from customers. They should provide accurate and consistent information, and ensure that written allergen information is always available.

Information with a meal: Our partners have a legal responsibility to provide written notices of allergen content with each meal they prepare. This information should be provided in the way that works best for the partner, for example by including menus containing allergen information with orders, or by using stickers on packaging.

Packaging: Our partners must take steps to protect against cross-contamination at all stages, from storage and preparation to delivery. They should ensure that the packaging they use is robust enough for delivery purposes.

Allergen incidents: In the event of a customer suffering an allergic reaction as a result of an order provided by a partner, the partner will be notified immediately and asked to investigate. If a partner becomes aware of such an incident, they should notify us as soon as possible.

Key Allergens:

Partners must indicate the presence of the following 14 allergens in their products:

• Celery

• Cereals containing gluten (such as barley and oats)

• Crustaceans (such as prawns, crabs, and lobsters)

• Eggs

• Fish

• Lupin

• Milk

• Molluscs (such as mussels and oysters)

• Mustard

• Peanuts

• Sesame

• Soybeans

• Sulphur dioxide and sulphites (at a concentration of more than ten parts per million)

• Tree nuts (such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios, and macadamia nuts)