This Is Why You Need To Be Legal And Insured
Decorating By costumeczar Updated 15 May 2011 , 11:02pm by indydebi
Food safety courses are mandatory for food businesses (including those run from home) and food related trades in Australia. That doesn't mean people or the foods they serve are clean. But they are legal.
Anyone running a food operation should do a safety course and wear more than an apron when baking/handling food. But I can appreciate that standards differ from business to business.
Jason, you've missed the points expressed entirely both with the crux of the article and mayonnaise as a food item. Methinks you just like to argue 
Either way, I've said all I have to say about the issue. I can't make it any clearer than I have.
And now we have people worrying about mayonnaise in their cooking...someone will mention pasteurised eggwhites next....
I give up! *lol* 
This concerns me because I put 1/4 cup of Mayo in every cake I bake! It makes for an incredibly moist cake. But...since I don't have control over the receivers of these cakes, they may leave them out for a couple of days. I guess I'm through with that practice!
What the customer does with the cake after it's delivered is irrelevant. You can only be held liable for your own negligence. Unless you have knowledge of a peculiar danger inherent to the cake that is unlikely to be known to the customer, you're in the clear. Provided, of course, it was safe when delivered.
You mean pasteurized egg yolks
.What if you buy eggs, peanut butter, tomatoes, etc. and they come contaminated already. Then you serve any of them and people get sick. Who would be responsible then?
If you're in the business of selling eggs, peanut butter, tomatoes, etc.? Then you're responsible. You could then seek contribution from your supplier or, under some circumstances, the supplier might also be directly liable to the customer.
..........CarolLee said: This concerns me because I put 1/4 cup of Mayo in every cake I bake! ........... I guess I'm through with that practice!.....
NO need to panic. The baking of the cake brings it up to the temp needed to kill any potential germs.
There is a cake group on cafemom and from the way the posts go, almost all are illegal.
Oh dear lord.
For a start, salmonella can be tranmitted by a lot of other foods you use in baking such as fresh vegetables, cereals, nuts, tomatoes and water.
Apart from observing your basic hygiene practices such as handwashing et al, the cooking temperatures you utilise in baking nixes nasties like salmonella.
In terms of responsibility after delivery, well yes you are potentially responsible for the goods you've sold.
Which all comes back to my original point - it pays to be legal first and foremost! 
PS. Yep, pasteurised eggwhites. I have found a few businesses online that cry, "we use pasteurised egg whites!" LOL!
What the customer does with the cake after it's delivered is irrelevant. You can only be held liable for your own negligence. Unless you have knowledge of a peculiar danger inherent to the cake that is unlikely to be known to the customer, you're in the clear. Provided, of course, it was safe when delivered.
It's possible that you would eventually be found not to be liable, but if you are not both insured and legal you would still have to pay out of pocket to defend yourself in court if guests end up suing you.
While I felt I knew "the rules" and practiced good health and safety standards before, I was amazed at how much I learned after taking the food safety course. Things like why we wear aprons (it's not to protect our clothes) and how home refrigerators are not designed for food safety (is your egg shelf on the top row? bad. very bad.)
Umm...why DO we wear aprons then? 
LOL I thought it was a) to stop me getting greasy buttercream stains on my favourite shirt, and b) to stop those tiny little dark clothing fibres from sticking to the fondant on a white cake... 
Is it something to do with burns and/or fire? That's the only other thing I can think of!
It's to protect the food from your contaminated clothing. for example, I got brownie-points from my health inspector when he saw the sign on my restroom door that said, "Aprons MUST be removed before entering." Why? Flushing toilets send spray out in a certain radius, contaminating items within a few feet of the toilet. When you're done with "your business", if still wearing an apron, you'll touch the apron to get your pants up. Those hands have not yet been washed and now your apron is contaminated. After washing your hands, if you touch the apron, it's as if you never washed your hands. If you lean against your work counter, you've just contaminated your work counter.
By wearing an apron, it covers those clothes that went into the bathroom. Aprons can be easily changed when they get overly soiled, or after you've been leaning into the trash can to clean it out. If it's not changed or if an apron isn't worn then the apron/clothes are contaminated by the trash, then you slide or wipe your freshly washed hands over a contaminated apron .... well, you might as well just swish your hands right in the toilet before rolling out that fondant.
I had a rule about having to change aprons after one was done prepping / cooking raw chicken before moving to any other function in the kitchen. If no apron had been worn, the employee's clothes would be contaminated and any hand-touching to chicken-contaminated clothes would cross-contaiminate any other foods.
This is one aspect I love sharing with food civilians. The look on their face as they realize the implications is just priceless. 
Umm...why DO we wear aprons then? LOL I thought it was a) to stop me getting greasy buttercream stains on my favourite shirt, and b) to stop those tiny little dark clothing fibres from sticking to the fondant on a white cake... What the customer does with the cake after it's delivered is irrelevant. You can only be held liable for your own negligence. Unless you have knowledge of a peculiar danger inherent to the cake that is unlikely to be known to the customer, you're in the clear. Provided, of course, it was safe when delivered.
It's possible that you would eventually be found not to be liable, but if you are not both insured and legal you would still have to pay out of pocket to defend yourself in court if guests end up suing you.
This is true. My point, however, was that the customer's actions after delivery do not (generally) increase your own risk of liability. This is important to know--even for those who are both legal and insured.
This concerns me because I put 1/4 cup of Mayo in every cake I bake! It makes for an incredibly moist cake. But...since I don't have control over the receivers of these cakes, they may leave them out for a couple of days. I guess I'm through with that practice!
I don't think you have to worry. You put raw eggs in your cakes and bake them. Also, I'm not sure what this women in the article served, but all store bought mayo is made with pasteurised eggs to kill any potential salmonella.
It's to protect the food from your contaminated clothing. for example, I got brownie-points from my health inspector when he saw the sign on my restroom door that said, "Aprons MUST be removed before entering." Why? Flushing toilets send spray out in a certain radius, contaminating items within a few feet of the toilet. When you're done with "your business", if still wearing an apron, you'll touch the apron to get your pants up. Those hands have not yet been washed and now your apron is contaminated. After washing your hands, if you touch the apron, it's as if you never washed your hands. If you lean against your work counter, you've just contaminated your work counter.
By wearing an apron, it covers those clothes that went into the bathroom. Aprons can be easily changed when they get overly soiled, or after you've been leaning into the trash can to clean it out. If it's not changed or if an apron isn't worn then the apron/clothes are contaminated by the trash, then you slide or wipe your freshly washed hands over a contaminated apron .... well, you might as well just swish your hands right in the toilet before rolling out that fondant.
I had a rule about having to change aprons after one was done prepping / cooking raw chicken before moving to any other function in the kitchen. If no apron had been worn, the employee's clothes would be contaminated and any hand-touching to chicken-contaminated clothes would cross-contaiminate any other foods.
This is one aspect I love sharing with food civilians. The look on their face as they realize the implications is just priceless.
Umm...why DO we wear aprons then? LOL I thought it was a) to stop me getting greasy buttercream stains on my favourite shirt, and b) to stop those tiny little dark clothing fibres from sticking to the fondant on a white cake...
Thanks for explaining Debi! I makes so much sense. I kind of assumed everybody takes off their apron to go to the bathroom without ever really giving the implications of NOT taking it off a second thought...I just thought it was common sense, now I'm horrified that there are people out there who don't! Its kind of like the people I see working in bakeries etc with food handling gloves on they handle money while wearing their nice clean gloves then proceed to pick up the next customers cream bun while still wearing them yeck! The raw chicken is a good point - I'll remember that one. (I'm a cake civilian, so it's great to get an explanation to these things.)
Is there anything to the burn thing? I think I heard somewhere about aprons being worn because they're a layer of clothing that can be removed very quickly - so that if you're working with hot liquidy foods and you spill it down your front, the apron can be quickly pulled away from the body stopping the hot stuff soaking through to your skin. Or likewise if you happened to get something like burning oil onto your front you can quickly whip the apron off. Is there any truth to that?
coral, it makes total sense. One thing I had to educate my husband on was the long sleeves on a chef's jacket. the long sleeves are to protect my arms from burns when cooking/handling hot foods (think "frying" or lifting hot pans). His point of reference was working with machinery where long sleeves were considered a hazard that could be caught in the machinery and cause injury.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%