The Council is responsible for enforcing food safety legislation within East Dunbartonshire boundaries to ensure that all food sold or produced is fit for human consumption and meets legal standards. Duties include:
- carry out programmed food hygiene inspections of all food businesses
- carry out food standards inspections of manufacturing and non-manufacturing premises
- investigate food complaints from residents and businesses in East Dunbartonshire and also complaints arising from foods manufactured in the area
- carry out surveillance of foods sold or produced in the area to ensure compliance against food safety and food quality standards
- teach community groups within East |Dunbartonshire about food hygiene and safety
Details on the policies and principles we apply are available in the document section.
If you wish to obtain further information, advice on food related topics, want to make a complaint about a local restaurant or food selling business, or want to start a food selling business please contact an Enforcement Officer through Customer Services.
Mobile Street Traders Certificate of Compliance for Food Safety
Registration of food business
If you regularly trade from a mobile food unit (for example an ice cream van, fish van, coffee van, hot food van) in the East Dunbartonshire Council area or garage a mobile food unit overnight in the Council area, you must register with the Environmental Health service. Please contact environmental.health@eastdunbarton.gov.uk to register and discuss any requirements.
Please ensure you add the registration number of the mobile food unit, where applicable, next to the name of the food business on the food registration form. You will have to complete a form for each unit if you have more than one.
Certificate of Compliance
If you apply for street trader's licence you will need a Certificate of Compliance from the Environmental Health section of the Local Authority where your unit is normally located overnight.
If your unit is normally located overnight within East Dunbartonshire Council, you will need this certificate from our service. You can apply using this form. Please note there is a charge for a Certificate of Compliance.
If your unit is located overnight within another local authority area, even if you trade in the East Dunbartonshire Council area, you should contact the Food Safety team of that local authority. Find your local council [opens in a new window].
Structural requirements
The mobile food unit must meet the structural requirements of the Mobile Traders Food Hygiene National Standard before the Certificate of Compliance can be provided.
Other food and safety requirements
As the Certificate of Compliance only covers structural requirements, your mobile food unit will also need to be inspected to ensure compliance with all other food law requirements. An inspection will be carried out when you are operating your business.
Further information can be found below. It is your responsibility to ensure you comply with other legislation, for example health and safety.
Other permissions you might need
Please note the Environmental Health team can only advise of the suitability in terms of food law and health and safety legislation. Other permissions may be required such as planning permission and permission from the owner of any land you plan to site your mobile food unit on.
Cross contamination prevention
The Food Standards Agency has produced guidance on preventing cross contamination. The guidance states that the safest and most reliable way to prevent cross contamination from raw foods to ready-to-eat food is by introducing complete physical separation. This would mean having completely separate equipment, food preparation areas and storage.
The Council has produced a booklet based on the text of the Food Standards Agency’s CookSafe manual to inform Food Business Operators (FBOs) of the ways in which they can help to keep their customers free from food poisoning. It also explains changes to the way in which food hygiene inspections will be carried out and how the current law will be enforced. This is available from the document section.
Community Protection Service Feedback
If you are the manager of a business which has recently been visited by an officer of the Environmental Health Team of Community Protection, we would very much like to hear your views on the experience. East Dunbartonshire Council is committed to continually improve its service standards and quality of its Food Enforcement activities. To this end, we have produced a questionnaire as part of an ongoing survey of businesses within East Dunbartonshire in an effort to gauge the standard and quality of our service delivery. The questionnaire can be accessed by clicking the button below.