Dairy prosecuted following environmental health investigation

Barnsley business Darwin’s Dairy has pleaded guilty to food safety and hygiene offences following an investigation by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council’s Environmental Health Team.

NP and DJ Darwin Ltd, trading as Darwin’s Dairy, pleaded guilty to the charges at a Magistrates Court hearing and was sentenced to a £6,000 fine and £170 victim surcharge. The council was awarded £1,000 towards its costs.

The company was charged with failing to implement and maintain procedures based on the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles, which are a way of managing food safety hazards.

These are offences under the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013.

Charges included:

• Failure to carry out effective monitoring at the critical control point of pasteurisation of raw milk.
• Failure to carry out procedures to verify that the HACCP system was working effectively and failing to test milk regularly to ensure safe food production.
• Failure to establish critical limits at critical control points.
• Failure to establish corrective action procedures.

The court heard how the council received reports of several E-coli cases in November 2019.

Environmental Health Officers then began an investigation, requesting records for production and HACCP records.

In November 2019, the Food Standards Agency issued a Product Recall Information Notice on all milk (whole milk, skimmed and semi-skimmed) and cream products.

Since November 2019, health officers have carried out extensive testing of both the milk and the processing environment and have continued to work with the business to help it comply with food hygiene and safety legislation.

However, based on the company’s lack of available records and failure by the company to provide reasonable due diligence, legal proceedings were started.

Julia Burrows, director for public health, said: “Food safety and hygiene regulations are in place to help keep us all safe and avoid illness from food.

“We have worked with Darwin’s Dairy and Public Health England since 2019 to try and improve processes and ensure legislation was being followed. However, the health of our residents is of the highest importance, and we must do all we can to keep people safe.

“We continue to work with businesses to help them comply with food safety laws. This helps keep Barnsley residents, employees and visitors safe from harm.”