Frequently Asked Questions - Residents

What food complaints do the Food Safety Team will deal with?

The Food Safety Team will deal with complaints that pose a public health risk.

Please note the Food & Safety Team will not get involved in any compensation claims. Compensation claims are a civil matter that you must take up with the manufacturer and, if necessary, through the courts. The team will deal with:

• food that is not safe to eat or actually makes you ill
• food that is so contaminated that it could not reasonably be eaten (such as a mouldy pie)
• food that contains a foreign object (such as a fragment of glass in a loaf of bread)
• chemical contamination of food and improper use of additives

The following complaints are dealt with by our colleagues in the Trading Standards Department at Staffordshire Council who can be contacted at  https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/ or tel 03454 04 05 06

• composition of food (such as sausages containing less than the minimum percentage of meat)

• adulteration of foods
• labelling offences and misleading claims
• quality and nature of food (such as pollock being sold as cod)

 For relatively minor problems it is best to complain directly to the company that sold you the food. Instances where it is appropriate to contact the shop or supplier directly include:

• if you are not fully satisfied with the product and you just want your money back (most large supermarket chains have an efficient quality control and complaints procedure to enable customers to return an unsatisfactory food complaint and obtain a refund - supermarkets log these complaints and refer them to their suppliers, who can then identify trends, resulting in remedial action
• if the complaint is not of a serious nature (such as a part of a pea pod in a can of peas, or a ‘flat’ carbonated drink)

For more examples of comon food complaints see our Common Food Complaints Leaflet below, or alternatively you can contact a member of our Food Safety team on 01543 464491 or email environmentalhealth@cannockchasedc.gov.uk

Food poisoning is an illness caused by eating or drinking food that has been contaminated by germs.

The usual symptoms are diarrhoea, sickness and stomach-ache, sometimes accompanied by headache, tiredness and a high temperature. Food poisoning bacteria take quite a long time to reproduce inside the human gut and some people are more resistant than others so it may be some time before there are enough bacteria to cause illness. Do not therefore assume that food poisoning is a result of the last meal you ate - it can take two or even three or more, days before symptoms show.

More information can be found in our advice leaflet, or you can contact the Food Safety Team on 01543 464491 or email environmentalhealth@cannockchasedc.gov.uk

Take details of when, where, what you ate, the symptoms you have had and contact the Food Safety Team on 01543 464209 or email environmentalhealth@cannockchasedc.gov.uk