The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) is the licensing authority for food businesses and certain trades in Hong Kong.
Licensing
Restaurants, food factories, fresh provision shops, bakeries, factory canteens, siu mei and lo mei shops, frozen confection factories, milk factories and cold stores are all required to obtain licences from the Department. It also issues permits for the sale of restricted foods, such as frozen confections, milk, non-bottled drinks, Chinese herbal tea, cut fruit, sushi and sashimi, oysters and meat to be eaten raw, food sold from vending machines, and for operating karaoke establishments.
Licences are only issued to food premises if they conform to the prescribed safety and hygiene standards laid down by law.
Trade licences are required for operating places of public entertainment, including theatres, cinemas and entertainment machine centres, as well as commercial bathhouses, private swimming pools, funeral parlours, undertakers, slaughterhouses and offensive trades.
Provisional Licences
To facilitate the setting up of food businesses, the Department operates a provisional licensing system in which a provisional food business licence is issued to premises that have satisfied all essential health, building and fire safety requirements. A provisional licence is valid for six months, during which time the licensee has to complete all outstanding requirements for the issue of a full licence.
In 2004, the Department received 2,309 applications for provisional food business licences and 1,758 were issued. Since 2001, a licence applicant can obtain a provisional licence over the counter from the Provisional Food Business Licences Issue Office within one working day if all the essential licensing requirements are met.
Licences Processed and Issued
Food business licence applications received and processed during the year totalled 2,587 (including 1,306 for restaurant licences), 1,149 applications for restricted food permits, 825 applications for places of public entertainment licences, and 58 applications for other trade licences. Licence applications are handled by three licensing offices located on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon and the New Territories.
The Department also licensed two cinemas, 10 entertainment machine centres, four commercial bathhouses, 37 private swimming pools and nine undertakers.
Liquor Licensing
To sell liquor, a licence is required from the Liquor Licensing Board, an independent statutory body established on 1 January 2000.
Staff from the Department provide executive and secretarial support to the board, which normally meets twice every two weeks to deal with contested cases. In exercising its powers under the law, the board regularly reviews the policy governing the issue of licences and the control of licensed premises.
The board has delegated its power of approving non-contested applications for new issues, renewals, transfers and amendments to the Director, Deputy Director (Environmental Hygiene), Assistant Directors (Operations) of the Department and the Secretary of the board.
During the year, 817 applications for liquor and club liquor licences were received and 741 new licences were granted. Some 4,230 liquor and club liquor licences were renewed.
The board regularly arranges seminars on liquor licensing to enable applicants and licensees to update their knowledge of the legal liabilities and responsibilities for the proper management of their premises. During the year, 11 such sessions were organised for 559 liquor licence applicants and licensees.
Inspections
Health inspectors perform regular inspections and checks to ensure that licensed food premises comply with the requirements, conditions and hygiene standards prescribed under the law. In addition to routine inspections, surprise inspections and formal inspections are conducted. Premises issued with trade licences, such as cinemas, commercial bathhouses and private swimming pools, are also regularly checked.
Since 10 February 2003, the Department has adopted the new Risk-based Inspection System (RBIS). This is a variable frequency inspection system which aims to direct inspection resources towards those licensed food premises with higher risks and with lower hygiene standards. Inspections will be re-focused to incorporate more on-site food safety checks and health education, in addition to general sanitation checks.
Law Enforcement
Food business operators who breach public health laws face prosecution. Under a Demerit Points System, they face the risk of having their licences suspended or cancelled if they continue to violate the law or to breach repeatedly the licensing conditions. The Department also cracks down on unlicensed food businesses by taking out prosecutions and, for persistent offenders, by summary arrest and applying for closure of their premises. The Public Health and Municipal Services (Amendment) Ordinance 2002 provides an effective mechanism to close food premises where there is an immediate health hazard to the public.
In 2004, the Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene exercised his power under the legislation to issue nine closure orders against five premises where pathogenic vibrio cholerae was identified in samples of fish tank water, and four premises involved in large food poisoning outbreaks.
Statistics on Enforcement Actions Against Licensed and Unlicensed Food Premises in 2004
| Licensed food premises | |
|---|---|
| No. of licensed food premises | 19,167 |
| No. of inspections | 243,401 |
| No. of prosecutions | 3,296 |
| No. of licence suspensions | 165 |
| No. of licence cancellations | 2 |
| Unlicensed food premises | |
| No. of prosecutions | 1,558 |
| Summary arrests - | |
| No. of raids carried out | 420 |
| No. of persons arrested | 91 |
| No. of Closure Orders granted during the period | 9 |
Hygiene Manager / Hygiene Supervisor Scheme
The Department will introduce a Hygiene Manager (HM) and Hygiene Supervisor (HS) Scheme from May 2005 to strengthen food safety supervision in food premises. Under the scheme, all large food establishments and food establishments producing high-risk food are required to appoint a hygiene manager and a hygiene supervisor. All other food establishments are required to appoint one of the officers. There are a number of academic institutes and vocational training centres offering HM/HS courses that are recognised by the FEHD. In addition, the Department has been providing free HS training courses for supervisory staff of licensed food premises since December 2001. The duration of an HM course is about 16-20 hours and that of an HS course is about four to six hours. By the end of 2004, the Department had provided 754 courses for 27,834 hygiene supervisors, while 6,354 hygiene managers had been trained by the institutions.
Slaughterhouses
Hong Kong's fresh meat (beef, pork and mutton) is supplied by three privately operated slaughterhouses at Sheung Shui, Tsuen Wan and Cheung Chau. Apart from monitoring the operation of the licensed slaughterhouses to ensure the required hygiene and environmental standards are met, the Department combats illegal slaughtering activities.
In protecting public health, all animals admitted to licensed slaughterhouses are subject to both ante-mortem and post-mortem inspections. This ensures that meat is fit for human consumption before it is released for sale in the markets. During the year, staff mounted 402 raids and surveillance inspections on illegal slaughterhouses, resulting in five prosecutions and the seizure of about 1,200 kilograms of pork and pig carcasses. They also conducted 23,809 surprise visits to fresh provision shops and meat stalls to check if meat from non-approved sources was being sold. The action resulted in one prosecution.
The Department also keeps a close watch over the irregular practice of selling imported chilled meat as fresh meat.