The owner of an Indian takeaway in Ellesmere Port has been fined £2,000 for food hygiene offences.

Rukon Kamaly was charged with nine offences under food safety and hygiene legislation concerning Holdi at Chester Road, Little Sutton when he appeared at Chester Magistrates Court on Thursday (October 22).

The court heard that during a routine inspection at the Chester Road premises in October 2014, Cheshire West and Chester Council’s food safety officers found that food safety practices and procedures, standards of cleanliness and structural compliance were far below those expected.

Raw foods were being stored next to cooked and ready to eat foods, cooked meats were being stored at room temperature, the same equipment was being used to prepare raw and ready to eat foods and used newspapers were being used to line poppadum containers.

Filters were missing from the ventilation canopy above the fryers and pieces of cardboard were being used to line a storeroom floor.

Instructed to make improvements

The premises were scored ‘1’ on the Food Hygiene Rating and Kamaly, 40, was instructed to make immediate improvements to food safety and hygiene and to complete all remedial works within 12 weeks.

But a subsequent monitoring visit by food safety officers in January 2015 revealed that he had failed to address any of the issues raised.

Mr Kamaly, of Belmont Way, Chadderton, Oldham, was fined £3,000 which was reduced to £2,000 in view of his prompt guilty plea. He was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £1,619.

Cllr Mark Henesy, Cabinet member for environment and communities, said: “Food businesses must comply with the regulations and seek professional help and advice when necessary.

“In this case, there was a total lack of adequate controls in place to manage food preparation areas appropriately, which created a risk of food poisoning for their customers.

“As this prosecution demonstrates, this authority will treat any failure to meet standards and consequently put the general public’s health at risk - very seriously indeed.”