Bread in open bags?

[DijonMustard]

Is there a health & safety issue about the sticky tape around the necks of bread bags coming unstuck, so that the loaves are unsealed on the shelf in the shop?

Ah, but the sourdough would be toast; never seen smashed avo on mere bread!
OP are you doing a health & safety project or something?!

Celiacs, who react to airborne flour, tend to avoid being near bakeries. A commercial bakery in a shop will use decent extractor fans to reduce risks but cannot guarantee no risk. hence all foods showing the Celiac Society Symbol being very well sealed and produced in a factory/ bakery that does NOT allow gluten containing ingredients on the premises.

Mice will bring down the wrath of the FSA and Environmental Health Officers who can close you immediately. A decent bakery takes steps to reduce the risk of attracting rodents. An indecent one tends to make the news, a court case, a very hefty fine and a special holding holiday at the governments expense. Not worth it.

In honesty the point about sandwich fillings being a far greater risk as a vehicle to cause food poisoning and cross contamination is well made. It’s the fillings that carry the real risk combined with poor handling and storage. That’s why you hear of people being made very ill from bought sandwiches in the news.

H&S are pussycats compared to what the Food Standards Agency can impose for food unfit for consumption…

That said IF it was sliced bread then yes I would expect it to be packed and labelled as that is counted as food prep processing. (PPDS)
If it’s unsliced and stored off the floor in a clean environment and sold on the day it’s baked that falls under just use a paper bag. Bread is not a high risk vehicle for food poisoning food stuff and pre packed come with a best before rather than the critical use by date. Keeping bread inside a sealed plastic bag can encourage moulds. The FSA issues strict guidance on food items that are much higher risk such as diary products, fish, eggs, pre-prepped salad, and meats.

If you have genuine health concerns about the low risk of germs in bread then it’s best to make your own. I store home made bread wrapped in cotton cloths so it can breath.

Most stores have a bakery section with open bread and rolls displayed. Not sure how this would have a particular impact on people with allergies beyond that.

It would be an issue for people with serious allergies.

If I worked in a shop and a customer came back with bread in a plastic bag not happy because a normally sealed bag was open, I would give them a replacement.

If I noticed that bags were often delivered unsealed I would contact the distributor/ manufacturer and tell them.

Come on OP, you might see that your OP, without context, seemed pretty bizarre.

I expect those mice weren't feeling their best.

If your shop has bread on the shelf that is open for 2 days you need sacking! Surely it’s checked, restocked and rotated daily? Any opened loaves removed?
What did your policy/manager say? Do you disagree?

Shop assistant finds item on shelf with opened packaging. Removes it from shelf and throws it away with other unsaleable produce. Job done.

Has anyone ever become ill as a result of eating bread? Gluten allergy or coeliac disease excepted of course... I'd have thought you were far more at risk from your sandwich filling than the bread itself.

have you read Cider with Rosie? the mice in loaves

With bare hands, after taking fiver from customer and handing over coins as change, reaches for bread with bare hands, plunges it into the slicing machine, shoves it into plastic bag with redtape around the neck and hands it over, bare hands, takes coins as payment…

It's not health and safety.
Food safety is a completely separate area of the law.

@Ohnonotmeagain You need to add up all those percents.

This is cheap white bread:

Where are all the “chemicals” and additives?

do you know what this is? Would you ever eat something so full of chemicals?

INGREDIENTS: AQUA (75.8%), AMINO ACIDS (12.6%) (GLUTAMIC ACID
(14%), ASPARTIC ACID (11%), VALINE (9%), ARGININE (8%), LEUCINE (8%), LYSINE (7%), SERINE (7%), PHENYLALANINE (6%), ALANINE (5%), ISOLEUCINE (5%), PROLINE (4%), TYROSINE (3%), THREONINE (3%), GLYCINE (3%), HISTIDINE (2%), METHIONINE (3%), CYSTINE (2%), TRYPTOPHAN (1%)); FATTY ACIDS (9.9%) (OCTADECENOIC ACID (45%), HEXADECANOIC ACID (32%), OCTADECANOIC ACID (12%), EICOSATETRAENOIC ACID (3%), EICOSANOIC ACID (2%), DOCOSANOIC ACID (1%), TETRACOSANOIC ACID (1%), OCTANOIC ACID (<1%), DECANOIC ACID (<1%), DODECANOIC ACID (<1%), TETRADECANOIC ACID (<1%), PENTADECANOIC ACID (<1%), HEPTADECANOIC ACID (<1%), TETRADEČENOIC ACID (<1%), HEXADECENOIC ACID (<1%), EICOSENOIC ACID (<1%), DOCOSENOIC ACID (<1%), OMEGA-6 FATTY ACID: OCTADECADIENOIC ACID (12%), OMEGA-3 FATTY ACID: OCTADECATRIENOIC ACID (<1%), EICOSAPENTAENOIC ACID (EPA) (<1%), OMEGA-3 FATTY ACID: DOCOSAHEXAENOIC ACID (DHA) (<1%)); SUGARS (0.8%) (GLUCOSE (30%), SUCROSE (15%), FRUCTOSE (15%), LACTOSE (15%), MALTOSE (15%), GALACTOSE (15%)); COLOUR (E160c, E160a), E306, E101; FLAVOURS (PHENYLACETALDEHYDE, DODECA-2- ENAL, HEPTA-2-ENAL, HEXADECANAL, OCTADECANAL, PENTAN-2-ONE, BUTAN-2-ONE, ACETALDEHYDE, FORMALDEHYDE, ACETONE); SHELL (E170), ALSO CONTAINS BENZENE & BENZENE DERIVATIVES, ESTERS, FURANS, SULFUR-CONTAINING COMPOUNDS AND TERPENES.

If you had said in your 1st post that
You work in the shop selling the bread and either
Your manager / work mate had told you to reseal and sell it
Or
You wanted to canvases opinions because you couldn't find any guidance at work
You would of got much more help and advice rather than witty sarcasm .
Atm it sounds like your back tracking and trying to cover a mistake in either your op or something you did at work.

I am surprised that working anywhere that sell food that you don't know the difference between health and safety and food hygiene and handling.

But to all the pp that have responded with typical but rarely seen any more mn humor.
THANK YOU 😁

If there is an issue, which is unlikely, it’s not a H&S issue but a Food Safety issue. But if the bread is clearly still in the bag there’s unlikely to be a problem there either. There are easier things to tamper with than bread if you want to cause trouble - anything liquid-ish and with a strong-ish flavour, hence the safety seals on jars of food.

Ooh I found a pound coin in a loaf of bread once and I was very pleased about it!
😂

entirely irrelevant

And for processed foods packaging is part of maintaining freshness and shelf life. It's different for bakery items with a very short shelf life.

I think this too. It's not that bread will go on off even but that it's supposed to be sold sealed. I wouldn't buy one that wasn't.
I don't buy anything not sealed that I don't peel or cook. After working in a supermarket watching grim people handle the bread I just can't.

Why idiotic? What does your store's policy currently say about the selling of sealed bread that has become unsealed?

Because that's where you should find your answer, and if there's nothing in policy about it then it's now an issue for management to address.

There you go with the idiotic assumptions again.

Um, no.

But the packaging and closure isn't really an effective seal. It will slow down the rate that the bread goes stale, and broadly keep it clean and all together, but it could get chewed by rodents or insects could probably enter through the closure anyway.

Plus customers will check the bread themselves before buying it. They won't buy anything that could have been kicking around for a couple of days with the bag open because it won't feel fresh.

Hang on, you work in the shop, but instead of looking up the store policy or asking your managers about relevant legislation around the sale of bread baked off-site, you came to Mumsnet as your first port of call?

Funny!

How strange many of you are! You must have been very bored indeed on a Saturday morning to pounce on such an innocuous question and make all sorts of bizarre assumptions and accusations 😳

I work in the shop, duh… so I have some responsibility to customers for what I sell. I’m not thinking of complaining, or reporting, or suing or any of the other weird and wonderful things you’ve conjured up. It only takes a tiny bit of common sense to appreciate that there’s a risk of contamination (including from pests) if products that are meant to be sealed are actually open on a shelf overnight. Open bags will also affect BB dates, as bread meant to be sealed will grow stale more quickly than it should have done if the bag is actually open. If after a day or two somebody in the shop re-seals the bag the customer won’t know that it’s been lying open for a couple of days when they decide to buy it, take it home and feed it to their families.

I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised to find so many wannabe sharks hanging out in the legal section here 😂 Thanks to the very few of you who actually considered the question rather than joining in with the pack 😂

Rats will eat through the plastic easily so it's not stopping vermin

It probably just stops the bread falling out on transit