The County of Los Angeles Environmental Health Division protects, maintains and
improves the quality of the environment to promote good public health. This mission
is accomplished through the enforcement of public health laws and educational
activities. One of the areas of this enforcement and education is food, the food
supply and the facilities that transport, process and sell food.
Food safety in Los Angeles County and the eighty-five cities located within, is the
responsibility of Environmental Health's Food Inspection Program in partnership with
the food industry. Jointly, we are responsible for ensuring that the community is
provided with safe food and reducing the potential for foodborne illnesses and the
spread of communicable disease. To this end, Environmental Health has assembled a
series of manuals to assist the food facility operator in understanding the
inspection process, developing a clearer understanding of good food handling
practices, identifying areas within their operation that have the greatest potential
for the spread of foodborne illness, and enhancing safeguards that minimize the risk
associated with the food supply.
Improving the food service operator's understanding of the public health
significance of the regulations associated with food is of paramount importance to
Environmental Health. This manual is one in a series of informational handbooks that
have been developed to provide operators with a basic understanding of the
principles of public health and the operation of our Food Inspection Program.
Application of the principles set forth in these manuals will assist the operator in
determining the current status of their operation and provide the tools necessary to
improve all aspects of food storage, handling, preparation, transportation and
service. In addition, this manual provides the operator with detailed information
regarding the inspection process, the report issued by Environmental Health at the
conclusion of an inspection, and the scoring criteria which is the basis for the
grading system in Los Angeles County.
Environmental Health is committed to providing the highest quality of service to both
industry and the community. This commitment extends to improving public health
services in all areas of environmental health. Many services are available to both the
public and the industry. I encourage you to contact us if you have any questions
regarding this manual or wish to inquire about one of our many public health
educational services.
I look forward to developing further alliances to promote good public health.
Arturo Aguirre, Director
Environmental Health
A downloadable copy of this booklet is available in Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf) by
following this
link.
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