A port state health inspector steps aboard in Palma with a clipboard. He wants to see your fridge temperature records for the last three months, your cleaning schedule, your food safety manual and the training certificates of everyone who touches food. The chief stew has fifteen minutes to produce them. Can she?
Food hygiene law is jurisdiction-dependent
There is no single global food hygiene law, and a yacht moves between jurisdictions weekly. What governs you is a layered picture:
| Layer | What it does |
|---|---|
| Flag state | The yacht is legally a piece of that state's territory; its maritime and hygiene requirements follow the vessel everywhere |
| Port state | The local health and hygiene rules of wherever you are berthed; port health can and does inspect |
| Commercial/charter codes | Codes such as the Large Yacht Code (LY3/REG Yacht Code) and MLC 2006 impose food, catering and potable water standards on commercially operated vessels |
| The yacht's own FSMS | The vessel's documented food safety management system, based on HACCP principles - this is the day-to-day law of your galley |
The practical answer to "what are the rules here?" is almost always: the yacht's own documented food safety management system, which is written to satisfy the strictest of the above. Ashore in the UK and EU, food businesses must have a food safety management procedure based on HACCP principles; commercially operated yachts are expected to hold the equivalent. Private yachts are less heavily regulated, but the microbiology does not care about your registration.
Due diligence
Due diligence is the legal defence that you took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to prevent the offence. It is not a feeling; it is a paper trail. In practice it is built from:
- A written HACCP-based food safety management system with identified critical control points.
- Monitoring records: fridge and freezer temperatures, cooking and hot-holding core temperatures, delivery checks.
- Corrective action records: what went wrong, what you did, who signed.
- Cleaning schedules signed off.
- Supplier records: who provisioned you, when, what.
- Training records for every food handler.
- Illness reporting records and fitness-to-work declarations.
- Pest control and water testing records.
Missing records do not merely look bad. They remove the defence.
Enforcement
Officers may inspect, take samples and photographs, seize or condemn food, and require improvements. Serious failures can lead to prohibition on food service, detention of the vessel, and prosecution of the company, the master and the individual handler. On charter, a food safety failure will also be a breach of the charter agreement.
Record-keeping that survives contact with a charter
- Record at the time, not at the end of the week.
- Record the actual value, including the bad ones, plus the corrective action.
- Keep records for the period your FSMS specifies (commonly a minimum of three months, often longer; date-marked and legible).
- Digital logging is fine if it is backed up and tamper-evident.
Onboard Notes
Provisioning in remote places is where the paper trail breaks: an island market with no invoice, no cold chain and no traceability. Record what you bought, from whom and in what condition, and treat unverifiable produce as higher-risk - it may need extra cooking, extra washing, or refusal. Scope note: xplor is not an approved centre or an accredited training provider. This lesson is preparatory study only - no certificate and no regulated qualification is awarded here, and the Level 2 food safety award must be sat with an approved centre of a regulated awarding organisation.