Approval of a food establishment
Certain types of food businesses need to be approved, rather than registered. There is no fee and the differences are explained briefly below.
Does the food business need to be registered or approved
Registration applies to most types of food business, including confectionary shops, grocers, catering businesses, food businesses run from the home and mobile or temporary premises, such as stalls and vans. You can find more information about registering your food business. If your business needs approval, you won't be required to register as well.
Food business approval
If your business makes, prepares or handles food of animal origin for supply to other businesses, then in most circumstances we need to approve your food business and it's activities.
Food of animal origin includes:
- cold stores that are re-wrapping and re-packaging meat
- minced meat establishments
- meat preparations establishments
- mechanically separated meat establishments
- meat products processing plants
- rendered animal fats and greaves processing plants
- treated stomachs, bladders and intestines processing plants
- gelatine processing plants
- collagen processing plants
You cannot operate your food establishment until it has been approved by the local authority, unless your business has received conditional or full approval for the proposed activity from us. To commence business without approval is an offence. A useful tool provided by ABC food law can help you decide if you need to be approved. You can apply to Southwark council for approval of a food establishment or complete the application form.
The approval process requires that you put in place procedures to manage food safety based on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles.
The HACCP documents will make up part of your food safety management system which should be tailored to fit your business and should be simple and appropriate to the scale and type of production you intend to carry out.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has produced an online help tool called MyHACCP for small food manufacturing businesses which may also be useful to food businesses in other sectors.
To obtain approval you must meet certain hygiene standards, set out in:
- Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 Hygiene of Foodstuffs
- Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 Hygiene Rules for Food of Animal Origin
details can be found on the Food Standards Agency approved food establishments web page.
Approval exemptions
There are some exemptions from the requirement to be approved. These are based on the premises having a retail element and/or supplying other retailers on a marginal, localised and restricted basis.
If your food business supplies food of animal origin direct to the final consumer (person who will be eating the product, or a caterer preparing food for service to the final consumer), then you do not need approval.
An example of this would be catering establishments, canteens, cafes, restaurants, local shops etc.
If your premises produces foods containing both products of plant origin and processed products of animal origin, you may also be exempt.
Please contact the Food and Safety team for further information, as the rules around exemptions can be complex!
However, even if you are exempt you will still need to be registered, and to follow most of the same hygiene rules.
Applying for a food premise
If you'd like to apply for approval, complete the application form (PDF, 82kb) and provide the mandatory documents.
Once approved, your business will be given a unique identity number and added to the list of approved establishments on the Food Standards Agency website.
You can find more information on our registering a food business page.
If you have any questions or need advice, contact us on 0207 525 2000 and leave your contact details.
Page last updated: 30 June 2020
