Meet the Food Safety Guru Saving Hospitality Businesses
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A food hygiene consultant from Wirral is on a mission to save hospitality businesses. Katy Elliott, owner of 5 Star Food Safety, has a unique concept that helps businesses achieve a 5 star food hygiene rating every time — protecting them from closure and ensuring their customers are safe.
Food expert Katy has over 25 years experience in the food industry and offers businesses a bespoke, easy to use food safety system that guarantees a 5 star rating every time. Also offering audits, random inspections, allergen and nutrition labelling and staff training, Katy has helped countless hospitality businesses — turning some around from a 0 rating to 5 stars.
With a wealth of knowledge and experience, Katy is Environmental Health Department compliant and gives businesses all the tools and training required to make sure they’re safe. From restaurants to hotels to food manufacturers, Katy’s 5 Star Food Safety has become a must-have amongst hospitality business owners in the North West.
Businesses achieving a 5 star food hygiene rating often use it as a valuable marketing tool to attract customers, whereas a poor rating can be catastrophic. Bad practices and poor hygiene can ruin a hospitality business overnight, killing its reputation — not to mention the fact that they can poison or even kill their customers in the process!
Katy said:
“It all began for me back in 2000 when I supplied healthy meals to children’s day nurseries. My business grew and resulted in me having to become a food manufacturer and working even more closely with Wirral EHO. I caused Wirral EHO many problems due to the fact it was discovered, with the help of Shaun Whitlock, that I was following the Irish Food Safety Chilling System.”
“Eventually, a full HACCP system was produced around the Irish Food Chilling. Luckily, Wirral EHO never gave up on me and helped tremendously. Thankfully they still help today and I don’t cause them the headaches I used to give them!”
“I’ve worked in the food industry ever since and founded 5 Star Food Safety in 2020 — seeing many businesses fail and realising I can help. The food hygiene guideline is very complex but my systems are so much easier to follow. Environmental Health visits are one of the biggest worries of every hospitality business owner so I put measures in place to guarantee they get 5 stars if they follow them.”
Meanwhile, her client Bon Bakery said:
“Thank you for the food hygiene system you designed for Bon Bakery. It’s been a pleasure to have you on site and your professionalism and positivity have been so appreciated! The system has given us more confidence and it’s great to have everything in one place and so easy to access and use. It’s great value for money and the team feels confident we’re doing everything we can to achieve 5 stars.”
A key area where Katy bridges the gap is with hospitality business owners who don’t speak English as their first language. Not fully understanding the complex guidelines can often lead to errors that put the business at risk, therefore Katy puts in simple systems and even translates them if necessary.
Katy explained:
“I’ve worked with some great businesses who are working safely but being marketed down on technicalities because they can’t understand the very complex guideline with complicated words. I genuinely love what I do — protecting businesses and their customers. Also, I’d like to give a big shout out to First Class Uniforms for my amazing new uniform!”
A passionate foodie, Katy also runs a free networking events that connect hospitality businesses with other businesses that can help them. At a time where hospitality businesses are under more pressure than ever, having someone like Katy on their side can be the difference between success and failure.
Katy summarised:
“It’s tough out there for businesses with rising costs and it’s more competitive now than ever. The newspapers are quick to publish 0 hygiene ratings and in today’s world this often results in reputation damage and closure. That’s not to say it can’t be turned around though — I have taken a few businesses from 0 to 5 and today they are thriving.”
FOR A FREE CONSULTATION WITH KATY CALL HER ON 07940314549 OR EMAIL katy@5starfs.uk
