The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department 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 herb tea, cut fruit, sushi and sashimi, oysters and meat to be eaten raw, food sold from vending machines, and for operating karaoke establishments in restaurants.
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 2005, the Department received 2,544 applications for provisional food business licences and 1,885 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 2,734 (including 1,315 for restaurant licences). In addition, there were 901 applications for restricted food permits, 791 applications for places of public entertainment licences, and 53 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 six cinemas, 10 entertainment machine centres, five commercial bathhouses, 31 private swimming pools and five 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 a fortnight 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, 774 applications for liquor and club liquor licences were received and 704 new licences were granted. Some 4,669 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, 12 such sessions were organised for 564 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 the Demerit Points System, they face the risk of having their licences suspended or cancelled if they continue to violate the law and, under the warning letter system, their licences will be cancelled on repeated breach of licensing requirements or 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 2005, the Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene exercised his power under the legislation to issue five closure orders against five premises due to an outbreak of food poisoning or food-borne diseases.
Statistics on Enforcement Actions Against Licensed and Unlicensed Food Premises in 2005
| Licensed food premises | |
|---|---|
| No. of licensed food premises | 19,545 |
| No. of inspections | 208,842 |
| No. of prosecutions | 3,191 |
| No. of licence suspensions | 121 |
| No. of licence cancellations | 4 |
| Unlicensed food premises | |
| No. of prosecutions | 1,180 |
| Closure of food premises | |
| No. of Closure Orders granted | 8 |
Hygiene Manager / Hygiene Supervisor Scheme
The Hygiene Manager (HM) and Hygiene Supervisor (HS) Scheme came into force 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 an HM and an HS. All other food establishments are required to appoint either an HM or an HS. There are a number of academic institutes and vocational training centres offering HM/HS courses that are recognised by the FEHD. The duration of an HM course is about 16-20 hours and that of an HS course is about four to six hours. The Department has been providing free HS training courses for supervisory staff of licensed food premises since December 2001. By the end of 2005, it had provided 969 courses for 42,430 hygiene supervisors, while 12,379 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 that 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 307 raids and surveillance inspections on illegal slaughterhouses. With the persistent efforts of staff, illegal slaughtering activities have subsided. Some 5,880 surprise visits to fresh provision shops and meat stalls were also conducted to check if meat from non-approved sources was being sold.
The Department also keeps a close watch over the malpractice of selling imported chilled meat as fresh meat. As a result, six cases of cancellation of fresh provision shop licence were effected.