The café bar trade and its suppliers are reported be increasingly exasperated with official progress on the espresso-machine safety question.  This follows the explosion of a machine in a café on the south coast (quite possibly the only such incident in living memory), which has brought back to attention the legal requirement for café operators to have their machine inspected and certified every 12-14 months.

The reason for the trade’s apparent frustration is that the various authorities, most notably the HSE and local environmental heath officers, still do not appear to be working in co-operation.  For example, the New Forest District Council has now contacted all café bars in its area requiring evidence of inspection and certification of espresso machines, possibly unaware that the HSE is conducting an investigation to try and establish what goes on in the espresso industry.  Meanwhile, a regional safety office in the north, again possibly unaware of the HSE’s work, has issued a café chain with advice that appears to go against the general opinion of most of the coffee trade.

The Coffee Council has an extremely lengthy document on the subject at http://www.coffee-house.org.uk/CH8CoffeeCouncilPressureVessels.pdf – in practical terms, café bar owners should at least ensure that they adhere to the introduction and the conclusion, which urge ‘great caution’ on the part of catering operators, and says that those using an espresso machine are advised to consult their equipment supplier and their insurers to establish where they currently stand.

The document has urged the various authorities to speak out, and to do so in simple terms without recourse to their own official documentation, which is largely incomprehensible to the layman.  In return there has been what appears to be a swipe at ‘lengthy, though well-meaning articles that have only served to create more misconceptions’.  However, the HSE now appears to accept that it must set up a central source of definitive information and make all official bodies, along with the entire trade, aware of the situation and the rules, in extremely plain language.