Sunny Ventures Ltd fined £12k for hygiene offences

Basildon Magistrate’s Court heard how Sunny Ventures Ltd had failed to improve food safety standards at its Thurrock production site, despite previous intervention by the local council.

The manufacturer was found guilty of having a lack of hot water in hand basins, failure to implement a documented food safety management system and breach of a statutory notice to stop operations until Thurrock Council was satisfied that remedial action had been taken.

Fines and costs

Sunny Ventures Ltd of West Thurrock was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay costs of £8,330. In addition, the company director was fined £1,875 and ordered to pay £1,000 in costs, while a separate fine of £1,250 and cost worth £1,000 were levelled against the company secretary.

Speaking after the trial, Thurrock Council leader and cabinet member for public protection and anti-social behavior Rob Gledhill said the council would not hesitate to take action where businesses disregard hygiene standards.

“Our food team had worked with this manufacturer to improve standards between August 2018 and early 2019 but enforcement had to be escalated when inspections in March and April 2019 found serious non-compliance with food hygiene regulations,” he added.

‘Willing to co-operate’

“We will continue to support businesses that are willing to co-operate in order to make sure they meet regulations but will not back down from those that choose to evade them. Consumer and resident safety remains at the heart of all we do.”

Meanwhile, Barnsley-based Darwin’s Dairy Ltd has been fined £6,000 for food safety and hygiene offences after failing to implement and maintain Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles.

Charges included a failure to carry out effective monitoring at the critical control point of pasteurisation of raw milk, failure to verify that the HACCP system was working effectively and failure to establish critical limits at critical control points.