By sector / Prisons & secure sites
A secure-site kitchen meets the same food-hygiene standard as any restaurant. What changes is how you reach it - under clearance, escort and the regime's clock.
Ordinary standard, extraordinary access
A prison or secure-site kitchen is a registered food business. The local-authority EHO inspects it and it carries a Food Hygiene Rating like any restaurant - the standard is entirely ordinary.
HM Prison and Probation Service's Food in Prisons Policy Framework, reissued in July 2025 to replace the 2010 catering instruction, makes the Governor the food business operator, responsible for food that is safe and fit. HMIP inspects separately against its healthy-prison tests, where kitchen decency sits under respect. So there is nothing unusual about the target you are cleaning to. What is unusual - and what shapes the whole job - is how a crew is allowed to reach it.
Cleared, searched, escorted
Prisons, immigration removal centres, secure hospitals and some custody and defence sites control who enters, what they carry and when they move. A cleaning crew is vetted and cleared before the date; on the day they are signed in, searched and escorted throughout - there is no slipping out to the van for a forgotten part.
Every tool is logged on a tally and counted back out. A missing blade or screwdriver can stop a wing until it is found. Chemicals are controlled twice over: under COSHH for safety, and under security because many cleaning agents are restricted or prohibited items inside the wall. Ladders, cordless kit, even rags, are all accounted for. On a secure site, planning the logistics is genuinely half the work.
The regime sets the clock
Access is dictated by the regime - lockdowns, roll checks, movement and mealtimes - not by the crew's diary. A prison kitchen also rarely closes: it feeds a fixed population three meals a day, with over 80,000 people in custody across the estate, often through serveries on each wing and with prisoner catering workers on the line.
That combination - heavy continuous use, self-cook wing facilities, and inspection reports that repeatedly flag kitchen cleanliness as variable - means the extraction and the fabric load up while the chances to clean them are narrow. Work is staged into the windows the regime allows, sometimes across more than one visit, with the canopy, filters and accessible duct cleaned to TR19 Grease and certificated like anywhere else.
What restricted-site cleaning delivers
On a survey the crew maps access, escorting, tool and chemical control and the regime windows before quoting, then cleans the extract system, cookline and structure to the same measurable standard a high-street kitchen gets - with grease readings and a certificate for the file.
What the clean cannot do is run the security regime for you. The clearances, the escorting, the tool discipline and the timing are the establishment's system, and a deep clean only ever happens inside it. Get that wrapper right and the cleaning itself is routine; get it wrong and the crew never reaches the canopy at all.
Questions
Yes - it is a food business under the Food Safety Act 1990, inspected by the local-authority EHO and rated on the FHRS like any commercial kitchen. Under the Food in Prisons Policy Framework the Governor is the food business operator.
Typically yes. Secure sites vet and clear crews in advance, then sign them in, search them and escort them throughout. Clearance requirements and lead times vary by establishment, so it is agreed before the date.
Anything that could become a weapon or be diverted is a security risk. Tools are logged on a tally and counted in and out, and a single unaccounted item can lock down the area until it is found.
Extraction and deep cleaning are staged into the access windows the regime allows, often outside core mealtimes and sometimes across more than one visit, so catering for a fixed population continues around the work.
Yes - the canopy, filters, fan and accessible ductwork are cleaned to TR19 Grease with grease readings and a certificate, exactly as for a restaurant. The security wrapper changes the logistics, not the standard.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
We work to your clearance, escorting and regime windows, cleaning the extraction and cookline to TR19 with a certificate for the file. Tell us the site and the access rules.