Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2007-09-04 18:45:54 - Graham Ellis
I'm delighted to be able to report that the catering facilities at our Well House Manor have been awarded five stars by the food hygiene team of the local district council in their "Scores on Doors" campaign. That's top score, and is only achieved by a small proportion of establishments - needless to say we're delighted and my thanks go to everyone on our team who has worked so hard to bring us up to this standard. And we have a kitchen and system that was designed to not only reach these high standards, but to remain there too.
A little more background - the local District Council's food hygeine team has a legal mandate to inspect all food premises, and has powers to require changes to meet minimum standards. In order to help publicise food safety standards, and in order to encourage businesses to provide far better that a legal minimum, they have introduced this standard - a kite mark for restaurants, if you like. And I know that as a customer, I would far prefer a kite marked product to one that isn't so marked.
We plan to reach and remain at other high standards too. Having only opened as a general hotel, taking non-course guests, at the start of this year, we haven't applied for other (optional) rankings. Yet? But some of them aren't necessarily applicable - we clearly cannot meet standards that require hotels to have a minimum of 6 rooms as we only have five, for example.
What picture should I use to accompany this article? I'm currently in Maastricht in the Netherlands ... so I can't just pop into the hotel (which is in Melksham in Wiltshire!) and take a picture. But I do happen to have "one I took earlier". Not of the kitchen, but of what proved to be the most popular components of last Sunday's breakfast buffet. Last Sunday, it was the croissants (which we cook on site), the roquefort cheese, the strawberries and the orange juice (which customers squeeze for themselves) that proved to be the biggest hits. It does vary - sometimes we find that we have a hotel full of the toast and marmalade generation, and they're equally catered for.
What picture should I use to accompany this article? I'm currently in Maastricht in the Netherlands ... so I can't just pop into the hotel (which is in Melksham in Wiltshire!) and take a picture. But I do happen to have "one I took earlier". Not of the kitchen, but of what proved to be the most popular components of last Sunday's breakfast buffet. Last Sunday, it was the croissants (which we cook on site), the roquefort cheese, the strawberries and the orange juice (which customers squeeze for themselves) that proved to be the biggest hits. It does vary - sometimes we find that we have a hotel full of the toast and marmalade generation, and they're equally catered for.