Food businesses must follow food hygiene law by maintaining a 'reasonable temperature' in workrooms.
There is not a conflict in law. Generally food hygiene law regulates the temperatures of food while health and safety law regulates the air temperature of the workroom.
The few exceptions where hygiene law does specify a maximum air temperature can be accommodated by well-known techniques such as localised refrigerated enclosure.
Health and safety temperature requirements
Health and safety temperature requirements in open workrooms can be met by:
- maintaining a 'reasonable' temperature throughout the workroom of at least 16°C (or at least 13°C if the work involves serious physical effort). This may mean chilling the food locally or minimising its exposure to ambient temperature or, if this is not practical
- providing warm workstations within a workroom where the overall temperature may be lower or, if this is not practical
- keeping the individual warm by providing suitable protective clothing, heated rest facilities, task rotation etc
You can find more guidance on workplace temperature.
Working in chill units and freezers
Health and safety temperature requirements in chill units and freezers can be met by:
- local heating in vehicle cabs where practicable
- keeping the individual warm by providing suitable thermal clothing, appropriate breaks to warm up, task rotation etc
For work in chillers around 0°C, suitable clothing and normal breaks are usually sufficient.
For work in blast freezers operating down to -30°C, no personal protective equipment (PPE) will be sufficient and breaks at ambient temperature or in warming rooms will be needed.
You can find guidance in British Standard BS7915:1998: ‘Ergonomics of the thermal environment - guide to design and evaluation of working practices for cold indoor working environments’ (available on the British Standards Institution website).
This Standard highlights the need for a suitable and sufficient risk assessment to identify the necessary controls such as:
- wearing appropriate PPE
- suitable and sufficient breaks in warming rooms with drinks dispensers
Health issues to consider
Health issues to consider include:
- asthma or other respiratory conditions (freezer air is very dry)
- cardiovascular and circulatory conditions such as Raynaud's disease
- high noise levels from some blast freezers
Means of escape
Provide means of escape following entrapment inside walk-in refrigeration units, chill units and freezers.
Doors should be openable from the inside and lighting or other means provided to enable the door and opening device to be seen when the door is closed.
Your risk assessment may show trapped-person alarms are appropriate.
Find out more
You can find industry-specific guidance on the British Standards Institution website:
- ISO 15743:2008: Ergonomics of the thermal environment - Cold workplaces - Risk assessment and management
- DIN Standard 33403-5: Climate at workplaces and their environments - Ergonomic design of cold workplaces