H&S. Cakes. Really?

[Steve Maskery]

My partner has got involved with the local Food Bank. Whilst there are no vast swathes of housing estates in decline in this neck of the woods, it is not a prosperous area and there are a surprising number of people who live in pretty primitive domestic situations. And of course, some of them have complex problems. The food bank gives them somewhere to go for a cuppa and exchange their vouchers for food and other essential supplies.
For example, there is Cat Lady. She lives alone with a million cats. It must be pretty unpleasant in there. But she spends most of her tokens on cat food. Who are we to say Non? And there is the alcoholic guy we have met on a few occasions, drunk as a lord at 10am. Nice enough chap, a philosopher. He insisted on giving us a book about Aristotle, in French.

Anyway.

She was on shift this afternoon and asked if I would make a cake. So yesterday I donned the pinny and make a trad English Swiss Roll (if that is not too much of a contradiction, generally unkown round here) and a dozen carrot and pineapple muffins.

"Ooh la-la!" was the general welcome as she entered, until the Boss arrived and said they were no longer allowed to sell home-made cakes. Quoi? Given thatr they were already on plates, she agreed that, for today, they could be sold. "Magnifique gateaux!", so I'm led to believe. But what a shame, eh? Something that adds just a little bit of pleasure to the people most in need in our community, and we are not allowed to do it.

Not just bonkers, but sad.
S

 

[duke]

It is the state of today, if it doesn't meet the state food safety requirements then it's binned . Good on you Steve, I'm sure they tasted great.
Good mix of characters in your area.

 

[Jonathan]

Well done Steve for being part of a community and helping out, bet the cake tasted absolutely beautiful! …..unlike the packet cake that ticks all the boxes for the regulators and tastes like a robot.

 

[Spectric]

It has to be full of chemicals and E numbers otherwise HSE think it could be a health risk ! It is just the sad state we have got ourselves into with over regulating everything to the point it is a wonder the human race got this far.

 

[Mike]

It is the state of today, if it doesn't meet the state food safety requirements then it's binned .

Sometimes it's not just safety requirements, but unrealistic expectations. When I lived in the States, my work schedule required some late night duties. I occasionally stopped for dinner at a fast food chicken place several times a month for dinner at about their closing time. I was usually the only customer in the restaurant as the staff cleaned and prepared to close.

Any remaining chicken, biscuits, fries (chips), and other food that could not stored overnight, was boxed and bagged on the counter. A van would arrive and the driver would pick up the food and drive off. I asked one of the workers about this, and he told me the franchise owner donated the leftover food to a shelter instead of tossing in in the bin. The shelter management would refrigerate the food and heat it up for the next day.

Much later, on one of my late night dinner breaks, I noticed the staff was unceremoniously tossing all remaining food into a large wheelie bin. I asked why they were tossing the food instead of donating it. Apparently, one of the shelter volunteers complained to the restaurant manager that the chicken was not fresh and the biscuits were dry. The manager reported the complaint to the franchise owner, who instructed the manager to stop donating the leftover food and dispose of it in accordance with the franchise policy.

 

[Steve Maskery]

It has to be full of chemicals and E numbers otherwise HSE think it could be a health risk !

Exactly. There are two main sources of the food. Some comes from a central EU hub, no idea where, and some comes from the local supermarket, Intermarché. The fresh stuff is short-dated, which is fair enough. The bread is white sliced, the cakes are shelf-stable for weeks. Everything has that "longlife" look, feel and taste to it.
Sigh.
S

 

[AndyP]

If I can help in proving that your cakes are fit for human consumption just send me a selection and I with give then a thorough testing.

 

[Malc2098]

If I can help in proving that your cakes are fit for human consumption just send me a selection and I with give then a thorough testing.

Ha! So shallow!

 

[Lurker]

He lives in France, HSE is a British thing.
I can assure anyone in Britain, that HSE have absolutely no interest nor jurisdiction where food is concerned.
The authorities need to consider that the tubby English bloke down the road might be a mass poisoner I suppose.


Footnote: I have been reading today that the place where Steve used to live (caught my eye for that reason) has an abnormally low life expectancy.

 

[Steve Maskery]

The authorities need to consider that the tubby English bloke down the road might be a mass poisoner I suppose.

Nah, I don't have an Ozzie accent, cobber.

Footnote: I have been reading today that the place where Steve used to live (caught my eye for that reason) has an abnormally low life expectancy.

I'm not entirely surprised. Lots of ex-miners with various lung diseases, lots of fuel pollution in residential areas, lots of cases of poor mental health due to the miserable run-down environment and the high levels of obesity due to the constant barrage of ice-cream vans.
I miss my workshop, but absolutely nothing else.*
S
*Well, there is a TLDR list of culinary items, but that would be the same wherever I had lived...

 

[Dr.Al]

I can assure anyone in Britain, that HSE have absolutely no interest nor jurisdiction where food is concerned.

Yep. Most instances where people moan about "health & safety gone mad" are either insurance companies putting rules in place so they don't have to pay out or just people worrying about being sued and erring on the side of caution.

 

[BigMonka]

That's such a shame Steve, but not entirely surprising unfortunately. 20 years ago when I was at uni a group of us wanted to spend winter evenings giving out homemade hot soup to the many homeless people in the city. Someone thought we should check with the council who proceeded to put a huge list of barriers in our way so the idea was ditched.

 

[Lurker]

Well, HSE are remit is “at work “ other bodies deal with the rest.
A further problem is people in a position of responsibility who ban things because
They don’t understand the laws and regulations.
Do not have the know how to apply sensible controls to control risks.
I spent a considerable time during my career overturning bans by inexperienced officials.

 

[Eric the Viking]

When our eldest and family lived in Los Angeles, not too long ago, their church was a distribution hub for the local food bank network.

They had several refrigerated units in the car park, and received a variety of foodstuffs from local supermarkets and bakeries, as their end of on-sale life was approaching. Lidl gets a very honourable mention here: they had just opened in LA, and were approached first by the foodbank organisers, and they agreed to donate, causing other big supermarket chains to follow suit, once Lidl's involvement became public.

My son helped with the practicalities, so we were also roped-in (willingly!). Fridays were particularly busy: some food was repacked to go to other places, but a lot was carefully combined into one-week family packs, for distribution from the church hall (er, gymnasium) to locals. Their local bakery, Porto's, is a winner of multiple quality awards (speaking as a customer, "rightly so!"), and was also an early participant.

I think around 2018, while we were there, one of our friends on the church leadership was in the process of signing off the accounts (the donations were tax-deductibles for the shops concerned). If I recollect correctly, that year they were given $4m of free food altogether, and Porto's contribution was around $1m. We had a suspicion they were even doing special bakery runs, just for the food bank!

My point: as far as I know, the LA authorities pretty much just left all involved to get on with it.

Quel contraste (or something).

 

[Lurker]

Eric,
This is quite common in the U.K.
I am involved in a local charity and steer them through the various regulations, nothing complex about the regs, sometimes I have issues with over enthusiastic junior environmental officials. I tend to treat our encounters as a learning opportunity for them

 

[AJB Temple]

I've been on the end of odd interpretations of the law too. From time to time I volunteer as a cook at a charity for people living on the streets in London. They are pretty much wholly reliant on donations and a lot of it is spent on quite basic, but highly calorific, food. They are sometimes offered leftover produce from restaurants etc and somewhat struggle with it. The issue is they often don't know when the food was prepared or cooked, and so cannot accurately label it. When the local authority FSA inspectors come calling, which they do quite often because of the huge volume of "customers" and often somewhat untrained volunteer staff, they get anxious about food that is not labelled. There can also be issues with insurance I'm told though not sure what the problem could be as homeless people are unlikely to sue for an episode of naughty botty.

A full breakfast shift can easily serve 350 men living on the streets (the most I've ever seen was 520 one morning when it was below freezing), and sometimes as many as 200 women (separately - they have to be segregated). That is a lot of food.