If making cakes and/or biscuits at home for sale at work in order to raise funds for charity please observe the following guidelines;

Personal hygiene

• Always wash your hands before handling ingredients and at regular intervals whilst making cakes.
• Wear clean clothes that will not give rise to contamination of food, for example; pet hairs, woollen fibres, loose buttons etc.
• Before preparing food remove excess jewellery e.g. ornate rings as they harbour dirt and bacteria and may also fall into food.
• If you have a cut make sure you cover it with a waterproof dressing and not a gauze dressing.
• Do not attempt to prepare food for consumption by others if you have:
  • sores, boils, septic lesions or any other type of skin condition;
  • an acute cough or cold; and
  • symptoms of vomiting and/or diarrhoea.

The kitchen

• Make sure food-contact surfaces, bowls and utensils are thoroughly cleaned before preparing food.
• Never use work surfaces, equipment or utensils for raw foods and then for cooked foods without cleaning and disinfecting them first.
• Do not allow pets into the kitchen as they present a risk of cross-contamination.

Ingredients

• Make sure ingredients are of good quality.
• Do not use food that is out-of-date, for example past its 'use-by' or 'best-before'.
• Keep ready-to-eat foods, for example cakes and biscuits away from raw foods, such as raw meat and poultry.
• Handle food as little as possible.
• Never add raw shell egg (uncooked yolk or white) to a ready-to-eat product, for example as an ingredient for icing or mousse etc.

Safe storage of food

• Cheesecake and products that contain cream or butter-cream icing must be kept in a refrigerator at < 8⁰C.
• Keep food covered as products must be protected from contamination, for example:
  • Bacterial contamination from - raw foods, refuse, dirty hands, animals, insects etc.
  • Chemical contamination from - cleaning agents, disinfectants etc.
  • Physical contamination from - hair, jewellery, buttons, pet hair, etc.

Transport of food

• Products should be placed into a clean, food-grade container, preferably with a tight-fitting lid.
• Where possible cheesecake and products that contain cream/butter-cream icing should kept cool with the aid of frozen ice-block.
• Make sure the vehicle is clean and does not present a risk of contamination to foods.

Labelling of food

• Cakes and biscuits that are sold unpackaged at a one-off event need not be subject to the Food Labelling Regulations 1996.
• Cakes and biscuits sold in boxes may well be subject to the Food Labelling Regulations 1996.
• If cakes and biscuits are labelled then the following information must be offered:
  • Product name; and
  • List of ingredients (in descending order of weight).
• If products contain irradiated and/or genetically modified ingredients then this needs to be declared.

Declaration of food allergens used as ingredients

New food information rules regarding the declaration of allergens apply from 13 December 2014. If you are a charity or community food operation which is not required to be registered as a food business, you don’t have a legal obligation to provide information to consumers in respect to food allergens included as ingredients. However, the University recommends that you or anyone else managing a charity operation, should consider the risks, in order to secure the safety and well-being of any potential consumer. Best-practice would be to provide:

• Details of any allergenic ingredients that may give rise to an allergic reaction or anaphylaxis in a predisposed person. A list of common food-allergens and products thereof that may be used in the production of cakes and biscuits has been listed below, for example:
  • cereals containing gluten (wheat, barley, rye & oats);
  • eggs (all varieties);
  • peanut (arachis oil, peaut flour);
  • tree-nuts (Brazil, almond, hazel, walnut etc.);
    • including marzipan, frangipan, praline etc
  • milk (cream, butter, yoghurt, creme fraiche etc.);
  • sesame (oil, halva, etc.);
  • lupin (flour); and
  • suplhur dioxide & sulphites (preservatives E220 - E228).
• Be aware that minute amounts of food-allergens can cause allergic reactions to develop in a pre-disposed person.
• Always clean down thoroughly if any food allergens have been prepared in the kitchen recently.
  
• Other common food allergens include:
  • celery & celeriac (soups, vegetable stock etc.);
  • crustaceans (prawns, shrimps, lobster, crab etc.);
  • molluscs (mussels, cockles, squid etc.);
  • fish (all species);
  • soya (tofu, bean curd, soy sauce etc.); and
  • mustard (powder, salad dressings, marinades, soups).