City of York Council's Food and Safety team will be on hand this week to help residents stay safe this summer.

The team will be out and about throughout the week in a bid to teach people about the 'four Cs':
- cleanliness
- cooking
- chilling
- cross contamination

Visitors to Monks Cross shopping centre on Wednesday 13 June or the Designer Outlet Village, South Mall on Thursday 14 June between 10am and 3pm will be able to see the team's food safety displays, collect information leaflets, and come away with a range of free goodies, including fridge magnets, balloons, stickers and pens. Members of the food safety team will also be available to offer advice and answer questions.

Shoppers will also be able to test their own food safety knowledge with a food safety quiz, with a first prize of a four-person picnic pack, which includes a picnic rug, crockery, cutlery and a cool bag to keep food cool and safe. All of this is contained within a handy back pack.

The council's food safety team inspects businesses to make sure stringent food safety laws are not broken, offer advice, take samples for microbiological analysis and investigate complaints about food or businesses.

Anna Carson, from the council's Food Safety team, said: "Every year there are around 800,000 cases of food poisoning in the UK and many of these could be prevented if people followed the four Cs. We hope that the roadshows will help remind people just how important food safety is."