Free handwashing poster for café kitchens
FSA guidance says to wash your hands before handling food, after touching raw meat, poultry, fish, eggs or unwashed vegetables, when you come into the kitchen, and after bins, cleaning, touching your face or hair, phones or money, or a cut (Safer food, better business for caterers). Wash them again before making food for a customer with a food allergy.
What the poster says
When to wash your hands and how, in six steps, from FSA guidance. For above or beside every hand-wash basin.
Handwashing
Wash your hands
When
- Before handling food especially ready-to-eat food
- After raw meat, poultry, fish or eggs or unwashed veg, or their packaging
- Coming into the kitchen after a break or the toilet
- After bins touching or emptying them
- After any cleaning
- After your face or hair or blowing your nose
- After phones and money door handles, screens and tills too
- After a cut or dressing touching or changing it
How
- Wet your hands under warm running water. Add liquid soap.
- Rub your palms together to make a lather.
- Rub the back of each hand and along the fingers.
- Lock your fingers together and rub between them.
- Rub round each thumb, then your fingertips on your palms.
- Rinse. Dry on a paper towel, turn off the tap with it, then bin it.
Also wash before making food for a customer with a food allergy. Gloves and hand gels don't replace handwashing.
From FSA guidance: Safer food, better business for caterers (Handwashing) and Running a food business (GOV.UK). England and Wales. Checked 11 October 2026.
Free from managero.co.uk
How to use it
- It doubles as a first-shift briefing for new starters.
Questions café owners ask
- How long should you wash your hands for in a food business?
- The FSA's Safer food, better business pack doesn't give a number of seconds. It gives six steps, from wetting your hands to turning off the tap with the paper towel (Safer food, better business for caterers, "Handwashing"), and this poster follows them in the same order.
- Can staff wear gloves or use hand gel instead of washing their hands?
- No. FSA guidance says disposable gloves should never be used as an alternative to effective handwashing, and hand rubs and gels can be an extra precaution but never a replacement for it (Safer food, better business for caterers, "Handwashing").
- Does a café need a separate basin just for washing hands?
- The law says an adequate number of washbasins must be available, suitably located and designated for cleaning hands, with hot and cold running water and materials for cleaning and drying hands. Where necessary, the facilities for washing food must be separate from the hand-washing facility (Regulation 852/2004, Annex II, Chapter I, paragraph 4).
- Is handwashing a legal requirement or guidance?
- Both, in different ways. The law says everyone working in a food-handling area must maintain a high degree of personal cleanliness (Regulation 852/2004, Annex II, Chapter VIII). The when and how on this poster is FSA guidance (Safer food, better business and Running a food business).
Sources
Every source below was read on 11 October 2026. Where the poster states the law it says so, and where it gives official guidance it says that too.
Keep the records that go with it.
Tick off the opening, closing and cleaning checks on a phone in managero, with a name and a time against every one. £18.99 excl VAT a month for your first site, with managero HR & Safety included.