Risk Assessments: Everything You Need To Know

Risk assessments are synonymous with the hospitality industry and the world of independent catering, but what exactly are they, how do you use them and how will they benefit you?

Essential to any food and drink business, a risk assessment must detail all of the potential risks that the business can potentially be exposed to. One of the most important aspects of running a compliant, legal and safe business, all businesses are legally required to maintain accurate and updated risk assessments. NCASS has put a lot of work into making risk assessments as intuitive and easy for you to fill out and understand as possible, but we have provided here an overview of exactly why these documents are so important to your business and how to go about filling them out.

What: Risk assessments are documents designed to cover all the potential risks applicable to your business. These documents pertain to all aspects of running your business and should accurately reflect the trading operation, providing a comprehensive assessment of the risks posed to you / potentially posed by you as a result of this trading. For a catering business, you need to have in place food risk assessments, which deal entirely with the produce and products of your business, as well as fire and health and safety risk assessments which cover your premises and business safety.

Why: Most importantly, you are legally required to have up to date and accurate risk assessments pertaining to your business in order to trade. As well as allowing you to comply with relevant laws, risk assessments are put in place to protect your business and staff alike. To achieve a successful standard of trading, it is important to know your business inside and out, be aware of all the challenges that are potentially in waiting and effectively completing risk assessments can provide any business owner with exactly that knowledge.

Who: The owner of the business must fill out the risk assessments first and foremost and take responsibility for them. There is also a significant bearing on any staff of the business, who at the very least should be briefed on any risk assessments and made aware of the potential risks inherent to the business, if they are not as in an ideal scenario, permitted to provide input into the completion of risk assessments. Basically, anyone involved with the business should be aware of the risk assessments, and have a strong understanding of the risks that are posed to the business.

How: Filling out risk assessments has never been easier with NCASS. We have an intuitive digital system that walks you through the process. Simply log in to your Members Dashboard and find them from there. We have made things simpler on your end, so they are easier for you to fill out, and will produce comprehensive documents that are also bespoke to your business. For food risk assessments, you need to know the journey your food goes on from the collection of raw ingredients through to plating up the dish for a customer, and then feed this information in, step by step. For fire and health and safety risk assessments, you need to consider all aspects of your trading unit, how you use the space and what you need to be wary of when trading. This will then allow you to identify all present and relevant risks and fathom how they must be managed effectively.

When: If you haven’t already got your risk assessments sorted out and in hand, then now is the time. These documents are a priority when it comes to running your business – as mentioned above, it is a legal requirement to have risk assessments in place for your business. You quite literally cannot afford to trade without them, and once you have created accurate risk assessments that you are happy with and are sure they cover the business adequately, you can rest assured and focus on trading successfully. Furthermore, if you have just started out on a catering venture or have recently made changes at the business these would need to be reflected in your risk assessments, so it would be an ideal time to update them.

Don’t risk it: Sort your risk assessments out here. NCASS provides a service to assist you with the creation of your risk assessments, which forms part of the Safety Management System that all members receive upon joining. If you’re not an NCASS member, click here to find out more info about joining us.