Jewellery, nails, phones and plasters: the personal hygiene rules food handlers break most

Most food handlers know the rules about jewellery, nails and phones. They break them anyway, usually because nobody ever explained why the rule exists, or because the supervisor breaks it too. Food handler personal hygiene rules stick when people understand the reason behind each one and see them applied the same way to everyone.

Here are the habits we see broken most often on audits, the reason for each rule, and how to enforce them fairly.

Why the rules exist: what falls into food and what grows on skin

Every personal hygiene rule comes back to one of two risks.

• Physical contamination. Things fall off people: stones from rings, flakes of nail polish, false nails, hair, plasters, phone covers. A customer who bites into one will not care how good the rest of your system is.
• Microbiological contamination. Skin, hair, noses and cuts carry bacteria. Staphylococcus aureus lives on the skin and in the nose of many healthy people and thrives in infected cuts. If it grows in food it can produce a toxin that cooking does not reliably destroy. Hands that are not washed after the toilet can carry E. coli and Salmonella into ready-to-eat food.

R638 places duties on food handlers and on the person in charge to protect food from contamination, including through personal hygiene and protective clothing. Our R638 overview sets out those duties in more detail.

Jewellery: what is allowed and the exceptions

Rings, watches, bracelets and earrings are a double problem. Stones and parts can fall into food, and dirt and bacteria build up underneath them where handwashing does not reach.

A typical site rule:

• no watches, bracelets, earrings, studs or visible piercings in food areas;
• no rings, except a plain band with no stones where your site policy allows it;
• in high care or high risk areas, many sites allow no jewellery at all.

Medical alert jewellery and religious items need a decision, not a blanket ban. We cover how to handle those fairly below.

Nails, nail polish and false nails

Long nails trap dirt and bacteria and are hard to clean, even with a nail brush. Nail polish chips and flakes into food. False nails, acrylics and gel overlays can break off whole, and the gap underneath them is difficult to clean.

The rule is simple: nails short, clean and natural, with no polish of any kind, including gel. Gloves do not solve this. A glove tears, and a long or false nail inside a glove can puncture it.

Expect pushback around weekends, weddings and functions. Be consistent: if one person is allowed to work with gel nails “just this week”, the rule is gone for everyone.

Cellphones in food areas

Phones go everywhere with us, including the toilet. They are handled constantly and rarely cleaned. They also bring physical hazards, such as cracked screens, cover pieces and pop sockets, and they distract people from what they are doing.

A workable rule:

• personal phones stay in lockers or a designated area outside food handling areas;
• if a supervisor needs a phone for work, it is a site device that is cleaned regularly and kept in a pocket, never on a work surface;
• hands are washed after handling a phone and before touching food again.

Staff will worry about missing an emergency call from home. Give them a number for the office or supervisor that family can phone, and the rule becomes much easier to keep.

Hair, beards, eating, chewing and smoking

Hair. All hair must be fully covered, including the hair at the back and around the ears. Beards and moustaches need a beard snood. Hair clips and pins fall out, so they should not be worn over the hairnet. Put the hairnet on before the overall so loose hairs do not land on clean clothing.

Eating and drinking. Only in the canteen or designated break area. Food from home in a food area brings unknown allergens and crumbs that attract pests.

Chewing gum and sweets. Not in food areas. Gum ends up in product, and hand to mouth contact moves saliva onto hands.

Smoking and vaping. Only in the designated smoking area, away from doors and air intakes. Remove overalls before going there, and wash hands before returning to work. Smoking brings hand to mouth contact and ash, and the smell carries.

Cuts and plasters: blue, detectable and covered

A small cut on a food handler’s hand is common. Handled badly, it is a source of Staphylococcus aureus and a plaster in someone’s meal.

• Clean the cut and cover it with a blue, detectable plaster. Blue, because very few foods are blue, so a lost plaster is easy to see. Detectable, because it contains metal, so a metal detector on the line can find it.
• Wear a glove over a plaster on the hand, and change it if it tears.
• Issue plasters from a controlled first aid box and record who received one, so a missing plaster can be followed up.
• Report infected cuts, boils or skin infections to the supervisor. The person may need to move away from open food until it heals.

A worked example. At a ready meals kitchen in Johannesburg, a customer complained about a plaster in a portion of lasagne. The plaster was a beige fabric one from a staff member’s handbag, so it had not been seen on the line and the site had no metal detector. Nobody could say who it belonged to. The kitchen moved to a blue detectable plaster in a sealed first aid box, issued only by the shift supervisor, with a short record. The next missing plaster was found in the same shift because the supervisor knew who had been issued one and checked their station.

Enforcing food handler personal hygiene rules fairly, including religious and medical exceptions

Rules that are applied unevenly do more harm than no rules. Staff notice immediately when the manager walks through in a watch, or when one supervisor allows nail polish and another does not.

Make enforcement fair and consistent:

1. Write the rules down with the reason for each one, in plain language and, where possible, in the languages your team speaks.
2. Train everyone at induction and repeat it in short talks during the year. Our online food hygiene course for food handlers covers the reasons behind these rules in simple terms.
3. Apply the rules to everyone who enters a food area: managers, visitors, contractors and auditors included.
4. Check at the entrance, not only when an auditor is coming.
5. Use a graduated response: a reminder, then a recorded conversation, then your disciplinary procedure. Keep it in line with your HR policy.

For religious and medical exceptions, such as a religious bracelet or thread, a head covering or a medical alert bracelet, do not simply say no. Look at the real risk in that area and find a control: worn under a sleeve and covered, secured so it cannot fall, replaced with an alternative such as a medical alert card, or a head covering worn under a hairnet. Agree it with the employee and HR, and write it down so every supervisor applies the same decision. A personal hygiene risk assessment template gives you a structured way to record these decisions, and our food safety culture support helps make the rules part of how people work rather than a list on the wall.

What to do this week

• Stand at the food area entrance at shift start and note how many people break each rule.
• Rewrite your personal hygiene rules with a one line reason for each.
• Replace any non-detectable plasters with blue detectable ones and control the first aid box.
• Set up a phone locker or drop point outside food areas, and give families an office number.
• Write down your agreed religious and medical exceptions so every supervisor applies them the same way.