How to deal with food complaints and incidents.

This article has been written by Pilla Founder, Liam Jones, click to email Liam directly, he reads every email.

Maintaining high standards in food safety and customer satisfaction is at the heart of your responsibilities. Effective complaint handling is essential, not only to resolve issues promptly but also to uphold the reputation of your business. Various types of customer complaints, from general grievances about service or food quality to serious allegations of food poisoning or allergen incidents, may occur so you need to know how to deal with each. 

General complaints

Listen carefully to the nature of the complaint by the customer, it is very important that we keep customers happy so that they will return.

Different types of complaints should be dealt with in separate ways.

Genuine complaints could include things such as being given dirty cutlery to food that is cold or poorly cooked, or possibly even the quality of the product not up to standard. These types of complaints can be dealt with easily, they indicate that some of our systems are slightly out of control. To keep the customer happy, simple corrective actions can bring everything back to the status quo.

Example. Dirty cutlery could indicate that the dishwasher is not working correctly, or possibly that the machine is not being racked properly or that staff are not being vigilant when laying cutlery onto the tables. These are easily rectified by maintenance of equipment and training for kitchen porters and waiting staff.

Example. Cold food could indicate that food has not been cooked properly or that heat lamps are not working properly or that service is slow. Corrective actions would include checking core temperature of food, reheating the food above 75°c, rechecking temperature of the food or maintenance of heat lamps or retraining of chefs and extra vigilance/extra supervision.

Procedure following food poisoning allegation – non-management personnel

Any kind of incident that involves an allegation of food poisoning or an allergen incident must be taken extremely seriously as the reputation and future of the business could be at stake.

All allegations of food poisoning and allergen incidents must be carefully recorded as legal action may ensue.

All written statements may be used as evidence in a legal action against the business.

Do not under any circumstances admit any liability for any incident, as this can have legal implications for the company. The incident may not be our fault!

On receiving a complaint, do not admit liability.

Contact the executive chef and head of food operations immediately and forward all details, they will then call you back with instructions as to the next step. Call them back again if no response is made within 1 hour.

Make a robust record of any thing said by the customer, word for word, write this down and ask them to sign and date what has been written if they are on site.

If it is a telephone conversation from a customer or an EHO write everything down vigilantly.

Whilst waiting for senior management to come back, inform the head chef and senior chef on duty of the report.

The senior chef should make the following checks and instigate the following actions:

Check all foods that may have been implicated for use by dates, freshness, risk of cross contamination, any suspect foods should be safely quarantined in a separated area.

Chopping boards, knives and removable parts of complex equipment e.g. Robo-chef, mixers etc. that come into immediate contact with food, should follow the written procedure for the monthly chlorine disinfection regime for these specific items.

Check all cold holding equipment for out of date products, check date labels as well as organoleptic checks (look, smell, feel, texture etc.)

Check general hygiene of the kitchen and instigate a full robust clean of all high care areas, food preparation surfaces, equipment, sinks, fridges, hand wash basins, all touch points etc.

Check all monitoring and recording documentation is up to date and all paperwork has been completed in its entirety.

Walk the kitchen, ensuring that all systems and control measures are being adhered to.

Follow any instructions given by the executive chef or head of food operations.

Procedure for foreign body incident

Foreign bodies found in food can come from many sources including from the primary producer, the manufacturer, the distributor or possibly from the food premises. These sources of contamination could come from many things on site including people themselves, pests, off equipment and utensils and from packaging etc.

Occasionally, a customer will make a false complaint against the company to seek compensation or a free meal, this is why we should not admit anything until the allegation is proven.

On receiving a complaint, do not admit liability

Contact the executive chef and head of food operations immediately and forward all details, they will then call you back with instructions as to the next step. Call them back again if no response is made within 1 hour.

Make a robust record of any thing said by the customer, word for word, write this down and ask them to sign and date what has been written if they are on site.

If it is a telephone conversation from a customer or an EHO write everything down vigilantly.

Whilst waiting for senior management to come back, inform the head chef and senior chef on duty of the report.

The senior chef should make the following checks and instigate the following actions:

Check maintenance reporting procedures are being used, check equipment and check that all maintenance records are completed and up to date.

Check that all staff are adhering to the hygiene and uniform policies.

Check the general cleanliness and physical condition of food preparation and storage areas.

Check through any monitoring or recording documentation to ensure that systems and controls are being monitored diligently.

Check with staff that systems and controls are being adhered to, question them to confirm understanding of the systems and controls if necessary.

Do not offer the customer any kind of compensation until a full investigation has taken place.

Food poisoning and allergen incident procedure

After consulting with the executive chef or head of food operations and following all of the above procedures and checks:

Inform the local EHO that you have received an allegation, verbally pass on the details of the guest involved.

Do not give the EHO a copy of the complaint form

Do not offer the guest any kind of compensation as this is an admission of guilt or liability.

Offering the guest, a complimentary drink when they return is acceptable

Providing that the systems in place are adhered to diligently and not compromised, then the likelihood of an incident would be extremely rare. Please be confident in your responses to guests or EHOs that you have nothing to hide.

Food hazard warnings

In the event of a food hazard warning, the information and actions to be taken will be disseminated from sources including organisations such as the food standards agency, local authority officers (EHO), public health England, DEFRA as well as from suppliers and distributors.

Head office will be aware of these notices and will disseminate information accordingly to all concerned managerial staff within the food operation including head chefs, senior chefs and other relevant staff.

To allow for the correct removal of food products from storage or from sale in the event of a recall, management must ensure that traceability has not been compromised, product codes, date codes, batch codes etc. must be retained or transferred from the original packaging within day to day practices and robust records kept to show due diligence.

Record keeping

For a food safety management system to work correctly, all actions should be documented, good or bad.

If or when a complaint is lodged, robust procedures will allow the process to flow smoothly, any corrective actions will bring processes and systems back under control.

When problems occur, this can sometimes highlight a deficiency in the system, if these are acted on and changes made in reaction to a problem, an audit / review of the system will force the system into continuous improvement which will ultimately improve the food safety culture of the business and ultimately the safety of our customers.