Chilled and frozen products

Workroom temperatures in places where food is

handled
Food businesses need to ensure that the requirements of food hygiene law are achieved while
maintaining a 'reasonable temperature' in the workroom.

There is not a conflict in law. Generally food hygiene law regulates the temperatures of food while health
and safety law regulates the air temperature of the workroom. The few exceptions where hygiene law
does specify a maximum air temperature can be accommodated by well-known techniques such as
localised refrigerated enclosure.

Health and safety requirements

Health and safety temperature requirements in open workrooms can be met by:

maintaining a 'reasonable' temperature throughout the workroom of at least 16 (or at least 13 if the work
involves serious physical effort). This may mean chilling the food locally or minimising its exposure to ambient
temperature or, if this is not practical;
providing warm workstations within a workroom where the overall temperature may be lower or, if this is not
practical;
keeping the individual warm by providing suitable protective clothing, heated rest facilities, task rotation etc..

Working in chill units and freezers

Health and safety temperature requirements in chill units and freezers can be met by:

local heating in vehicle cabs where practicable;

keeping the individual warm by providing suitable thermal clothing, appropriate breaks to warm up, task rotation
etc
For work in chillers around 0oC suitable clothing and normal breaks are usually sufficient. For work in blast
freezers operating down to -30oC no personal protective equipment (PPE) will be sufficient and breaks at
ambient temperature or in warming rooms will be needed.
Guidance can be found in British Standard BS7915:1998 'Ergonomics of the thermal environment - Guide
to design and evaluation of working practices for cold indoor working environments'. This BS highlights
the need for a suitable and sufficient risk assessment to identify the necessary controls such as wearing
appropriate PPE, suitable and sufficient breaks in warming rooms with drinks dispensers etc.

Health issues to consider include asthma or other respiratory conditions (freezer air is very dry),
cardiovascular and circulatory conditions such as Raynaud's disease. Additionally some blast freezers
can have high noise levels.

Means of escape following entrapment inside walk-in refrigeration units, chill units and freezers should be
provided. Doors should be openable from the inside and lighting or otherwise provided to enable the door
and opening device to be seen when the door is closed. The risk assessment may show trapped person
alarms appropriate.