Health status statement, salmonella certificate and hygiene passport

Food premises must have a person in charge who ensures the staff’s hygiene training, monitors that own-checks are followed and verifies that the staff has the health status statements and hygiene passports required.

A food sector operator must ensure that all persons who handle unpackaged and perishable food products in their work in food premises have a hygiene passport obtained in Finland as proof of their knowledge of food hygiene.

The employee must obtain a hygiene pass within 3 months of starting the job, at the latest. This period of three months will also include previous work done in the food sector that required a hygiene passport.

Hygiene passport tests are arranged and passports granted by independent testers approved by the Finnish Food Authority.

A list of approved testers is available on the Finnish Food Authority’s website. Tests are also offered in languages other than Finnish and Swedish.

A person who handles unpackaged and perishable food that is served cold must provide an assessment of their health at the beginning of the employment, if the estimated duration of the employment is at least one month.

A health assessment refers to an interview carried out by a doctor or nurse in occupational health services or a health centre. In connection with the interview, the need for laboratory tests, e.g. for salmonellosis, will be assessed, and the best practices of food-related work will be summarised:

• Do not come to work when you have symptoms of an illness.
• Inform your employer if you have an illness that may be transmitted via food.
• Good hand hygiene should be emphasised at work, and training should be provided on the topic.

This assessment must also be required of interns and other workers who work at the worksite but do not have employment contracts. However, the assessment is not required of persons who work at a cash counter or distribute food.

In addition to beginning employment, the employer must also require that the employee provide a reliable account of not having contracted salmonella if there is a justified reason to believe that the employee may have contracted salmonella (e.g. they suffer from fever and diarrhoea).

During an inspection, the food premises must at least be able to present a listing of people who have provided a certificate of their health assessment (name of person and the date when the employer received/verified the assessment).