East Suffolk Council

Covid-19 food safety guidance for businesses

General guidance
Roadmap out of lockdown
What you can and cannot do	Face covering
What you need to know about Coronavirus and food	Covid-19 symptoms
Food hygiene guidance	Managing employee sickness
Social distancing	Maintaining social distancing in specific food business settings
Health and safety guidance for businesses	Making your workplace Covid-Secure
Restaurants, pubs, bars and takeaways
Working safely during Coronavirus	Food safety for food delivery
Adapting food businesses for takeaway and delivery during Covid-19	Cleaning effectively in your business
Re-opening checklist for food businesses during Covid-19	Keeping workers and customers safe during COVID-19
CIEH guidance on food delivery and takeaway services (available in English, Welsh, Punjabi and Bengali)
Pavement licences
Community cooking and food banks	Manufacturers
Food safety for community cooking and food banks	Adapting food manufacturing operations during Covid-19
	Bulk freezing of ambient and chilled foods
Create a Coronavirus NHS QR code for your venue
I have a question or need to report a concern

Lifting the national lockdown in England

On Monday 22 February, the Prime Minister made a statement in the House of Commons outlining a preliminary roadmap to lift the national lockdown in England.

• Closing certain business and venues in England - GOV.UK
• Reopening businesses and venues in England - GOV.UK

Frequently asked questions

Can my customers eat/drink at my tables?
Customers cannot consume food and drink at your premises, inside or outside.

Do I have to provide customer toilets at my business?
The council can require the provision of customer toilets at places where customers are invited to consume the food on the premises. This does not apply to retail or predominantly takeaway businesses. Covid-19 restrictions have not changed this, and it is up to the food business to ensure safe access and use, following government guidelines.

Do takeaway customers have to order by phone/app/internet?
No, but these methods are advised where long queues of customers are likely outside and social distancing is a problem.

Do I have to control the number of customers who enter my business to pick up a takeaway
Yes. You must ensure 2 metre distancing between people from different households who are queuing.

Can my customers eat/drink at my tables?
Customers cannot consume food and drink at your premises, inside or outside

Do I have to provide customer toilets at my business?
The council can require the provision of customer toilets at places where customers are invited to consume the food on the premises. This does not apply to retail or predominantly takeaway businesses. Covid-19 restrictions have not changed this, and it is up to the food business to ensure safe access and use, following government guidelines.

Do takeaway customers have to order by phone/app/internet?
No, but these methods are advised where long queues of customers are likely outside and social distancing is a problem.

Do I have to control the number of customers who enter my business to pick up a takeaway?
Yes. You must ensure 2 metre distancing between people from different households who are queuing.

Making your workplace Covid-Secure

The UK Government has lots of guidance for businesses to help them ensure they are Covid-Secure.

• Working safely during coronavirus(COVID-19)
• Test and Trace app check in benefits poster
• Test and Trace app hospitality check in regulations poster
• Test and Trace app hospitality venue regulations poster
• Test and Trace app new venue alerts process poster
• COVID-19 restrictions posters: 29 March 2021 - GOV.UK

This encourages businesses to carry out a risk assessment and helps to identify the workplace adjustments that they should make. Employers have the legal responsibility to protect their employees and other people on site, such as customers and visitors. The guidance will help businesses to easily find out what they should do. Employees can also use this to check what their workplace needs to do to keep people safe.