Food premises approval

Read about the types of food businesses that need to be approved, rather than registered. There are no fees for food premises approvals.

Does the food business need to be registered or approved?

Registration applies to most types of food business, including catering businesses run from home and mobile or temporary premises, such as stalls and vans. If you need to register your food business, visit our Food business registration page for guidance.

Food business approval

If your business makes, prepares or handles food of animal origin for supply to other businesses, then in most circumstances we need to approve your food business and its activities.

Food of animal origin includes:

meat and poultry - whether fresh, frozen or cooked
meat products such as pies, sausage rolls, faggots, black pudding and bacon
raw or partially cooked minced meat or meat preparations such as sausages, burgers, marinated raw meat and kebab meat
fish and fish products such as fish fingers, prawns, lobsters, crabs and crayfish - whether dead or alive
live bivalve molluscs
ready meals containing fish or meat
milk and dairy products such as butter, cream, cheese, yoghurt, ice-cream and so on.
frogs legs and snails
rendered animal fats and other animal by-products such as gelatine, collagen, stomachs, bladders and intestines
honey and blood
certain cold stores and wholesale markets

You cannot operate your food establishment until it has been approved by the local authority, unless your business has received conditional or full approval for the proposed activity from us. To commence business without approval is an offence, for which your business may be prosecuted.

The approval process requires that you put in place procedures to manage food safety based on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles. The HACCP documents will make up part of your food safety management system which should be tailored to fit your business and should be simple and appropriate to the scale and type of production you intend to carry out. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has produced an online help tool called MyHACCP for small food manufacturing businesses.

Hygiene regulations

To obtain approval you must meet the following hygiene standards:

Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 Hygiene Rules for Food of Animal Origin
Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 Hygiene of Foodstuffs
Visit the Food Standards Agency approved food establishments web page for full details

Approval exemptions

There are some exemptions from the requirement to be approved. These are based on the premises being retail or supplying other retailers on a marginal, localised and restricted basis.