What the UK Salmonella Egg Outbreak Means for Food Businesses
September 8, 2026
UKHSA is investigating 528 Salmonella cases, with imported eggs a potential link. Here’s what food businesses should be checking now.
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People often forget that Mercury Support has a full-service HR department. We understand. You get to know us over food safety audits and health and safety advice, and then Mercury365, our HR arm, pops up like a plot twist. Consider this your reminder, and a well-timed one at that.
Because when it comes to employment law, there are two kinds of people in hospitality: those who enjoy reading employment legislation, and normal people.
Fortunately, the Mercury365 team fall firmly into the first category. Someone has to.
That works rather nicely for our clients, because the Employment Rights Act 2025 is being introduced in stages, and the next significant wave of changes is expected this October.
Mercury365 is headed up by the brilliant James Carman, who has the enviable ability to make complicated employment law sound clear, practical and considerably less frightening.
So, pop the kettle on and give us five minutes. Here’s what has already changed, what is coming next, and what we would be doing now if we were responsible for your business.
The first round arrived in April 2026, and plenty of businesses blinked and missed it. Here is a quick catch-up.
From 6 April 2026, the three statutory “waiting days” were abolished, meaning Statutory Sick Pay became payable from the first day of absence.
The lower earnings limit was also removed, so employees who previously earned too little to qualify may now be entitled to SSP.
Yes, that includes your Saturday-only team members.
In simple terms, the meter now starts running as soon as someone is off sick. Lower earners receive whichever is less: 80% of their normal weekly earnings or the standard SSP rate of £123.25 per week.
It is worth checking that your payroll system is actually making those calculations correctly, rather than assuming somebody, somewhere, has sorted it.
The previous qualifying service periods have been removed.
The notice requirement for paternity leave has also reduced from 15 weeks before the expected week of childbirth to 28 days.
That means managers and payroll teams need to be ready to deal with requests from the very beginning of someone’s employment.
Businesses must now retain proper records showing annual leave taken and how holiday pay has been calculated.
If your holiday system currently consists of a laminated wall planner, three different spreadsheets and a smiley face magnet, it may be time for a rethink.
Where a business proposes 20 or more redundancies and fails to consult properly, the maximum protective award has increased from 90 to 180 days’ gross pay per affected employee.
That is an expensive way to discover that “we had a quick chat with everyone” does not count as meaningful consultation.
April also brought the introduction of the Fair Work Agency, a single enforcement body which took over responsibility for areas including national minimum wage, Statutory Sick Pay and agency-worker enforcement on 7 April 2026.
Its powers are expected to expand as the legislation is rolled out.
In other words, poor employment practices are becoming much harder to hide and considerably more expensive to ignore.
This is the phase hospitality businesses should be preparing for now, particularly those with customer-facing teams.
From October 2026, the Equality Act 2010 is expected to be amended so employers can become liable for harassment of employees by third parties, including customers, contractors and suppliers.
The defence will be showing that the business took all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment.
At the same time, the existing duty to prevent sexual harassment, which has been in force since October 2024, is being strengthened from “reasonable steps” to “all reasonable steps”.
The Government is expected to set out further detail in regulations, but businesses should not wait until October to begin preparing.
In practice, a tribunal is likely to expect evidence such as:
The important question will be whether the business can demonstrate that it actively considered the risks, trained its people and responded appropriately when concerns were raised.
This one now comes with a health warning, because it has changed twice in the last fortnight. Building on the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023, employers were set to be required to consult affected employees, or a recognised trade union where applicable, when creating or reviewing a written tipping policy.
Businesses would also have needed to give affected workers a summary of the views raised during the consultation, and to review the policy at least every three years.
However, the Government published a revised Code of Practice covering exactly that at the start of July, then quietly withdrew it a week later with no explanation. The withdrawal is widely believed to follow pressure from the unions, who argue that tips should go only to staff working at unit level, rather than being shared with head-office roles such as sales and events teams, as some businesses currently allow.
So watch this space. Either the changes will come back in a tougher form, or they will not go ahead as planned. No further announcement has been made yet, and we will update this post as soon as one is. In the meantime, treat the consultation and three-yearly review requirements as unconfirmed.
If your team currently find out how tips are distributed through rumours, guesswork or a badly photocopied notice near the staff toilets, this is your cue to sort it, whatever the final rules end up saying.
The time limit for most employment tribunal claims is expected to increase from three months to six months.
When Acas early conciliation is added, an issue that everyone assumed had gone away could formally reappear many months later.
That is long enough to change the menu twice, replace the general manager and repaint the bar.
It also makes good record-keeping far more important.
Decisions relating to performance, conduct, grievances, absence and dismissal should be properly considered and documented at the time. Trying to reconstruct events six or eight months later from WhatsApp messages and somebody’s memory is rarely a winning strategy.
Two further phases are already expected during 2027 and both are worth planning for now.
From 1 January 2027, the service requirement for bringing an ordinary unfair dismissal claim reduces from two years to six months.
The existing cap on compensation, currently the lower of 52 weeks’ pay or £123,543, is also being removed. Neither of these is a proposal or a prediction. Both are happening.
There is a sting in the tail here too: the change is effectively retrospective. Anyone with more than six months’ service on 1 January 2027 will have unfair dismissal rights from that date. In practice, that means anyone who joined you on or after 1 July this year is already on the clock.
Fire and rehire practices will face significant restrictions too. Dismissing employees because they refuse changes to fundamental terms such as pay, pension, hours or shift arrangements is expected to become automatically unfair, other than in very limited circumstances where the employer can demonstrate severe financial difficulties threatening the survival of the business.
And no, a quiet January probably will not qualify.
If your current probation process consists of “we’ll see how they get on”, 2027 would politely like a word.
Structured probation reviews, clear objectives, documented performance conversations and properly managed dismissal procedures will become more important than ever.
Probation periods themselves need a hard look too. If yours currently run to six months, an employee who fails probation could already have unfair dismissal rights by the time you act. The safer structure is a three-month probation with the option to extend by a further two months if the jury is still out, which still leaves you a month in hand before those rights kick in.
Later in 2027, zero-hours and qualifying low-hours workers are expected to gain the right to be offered guaranteed hours based on the hours they have regularly worked during a reference period, likely to be 12 weeks.
They are also expected to gain rights relating to reasonable notice of shifts and compensation where shifts are cancelled, shortened or changed at short notice.
Put simply, if somebody has worked every Friday and Saturday night for months, the business may need to offer them a contract reflecting that reality.
Some of the detail is still being consulted on, including the threshold for deciding who counts as a low-hours worker.
However, the overall direction is clear.
Hospitality operators that review working patterns, rotas and contracts during 2026 are likely to find the transition manageable.
Those who leave it until the rules arrive may find themselves calling James in a slight panic while standing in the middle of a busy service.
He will still help, obviously. He is good like that. 😊
1. Review your sick pay and absence processes
Day-one SSP is already in force, so this should already have been addressed.
Check that payroll is applying the new rules correctly, particularly for lower-paid and part-time employees.
2. Complete a harassment risk assessment
Pay particular attention to customer-facing roles and areas where employees may encounter abusive, discriminatory or sexual behaviour.
Refresh your policies, train your staff and managers, and make sure everybody knows how to report a concern.
Keep the evidence. It may form an essential part of your “all reasonable steps” defence.
3. Consult your team about tipping
Review your written tipping policy, speak to affected employees, record the consultation and provide them with a summary of the views raised.
Then diarise the next formal review. The formal consultation rules are in limbo while the Government decides what to do with the withdrawn Code of Practice, but sorting your policy now costs nothing and puts you ahead whichever way it jumps.
4.Improve your record-keeping
Holiday records, working hours, training, probation reviews, disciplinary decisions and grievance investigations should all be properly documented.
With longer tribunal time limits, notes made at the time are far more valuable than memories months later.
5. Review your rotas and contracts
Look at how regularly your zero-hours and low-hours employees are actually working.
If the rota and the contract are telling two completely different stories, it is better to address that now than halfway through a Saturday night service in 2027.
6. Shorten your probation periods
If your standard probation period is six months, move to three months with the option to extend by two more. Anyone who joined you after 1 July 2026 will have unfair dismissal rights on 1 January 2027, so of everything on this list, this is the one to sort this week.
At Mercury, we understand that employment law is not why most people entered hospitality.
You opened a restaurant, hotel, bar or venue because you wanted to create something brilliant, look after customers and build a successful business. You probably did not do it because you had a burning desire to debate statutory notice periods.
That is where Mercury365 comes in.
Led by James Carman, MSc., ACIPD, ILM, ABM, Mercury365 provides practical, straightforward HR support from people who understand the realities of running a hospitality business.
We can help you:
And you do not need a monthly retainer to get any of this. If HR has never caused you a problem, we completely understand that a monthly fee can feel like paying for breakdown cover on a car that has never broken down.
That is why Mercury365 offers a pay-as-you-need service: dip in and out as and when something comes up, and if you find yourself needing us more often, we will review it together and see whether a retained arrangement would serve you better.
We also take on one-off project work. And if you are just starting out, our starter package gives a new business a company handbook, contracts of employment and all the forms and paperwork you need to get up and running, set up properly from day one rather than patched together later.
One gentle word of warning from James, though: in HR, as with investments, past performance is no guarantee of future performance. It only takes one poor hire to lead to a world of pain, and cars have a habit of breaking down the week after the cover lapses.
Most importantly, when you contact Mercury, you speak to an actual human being who will listen, understand the situation and help you work out what to do next. Novel, we know.
To book a free 30-minute review, call 01925 396936 or email James directly at James@mercurysupport.co.uk, or the team at Info@mercurysupport.co.uk.
We will help you understand what the changes mean for your business, identify any gaps and put a practical plan in place.
And if you are local, there is a reasonable chance James will discuss it with you over a brew.
Details correct as of July 2026, based on Acas guidance and the Government’s implementation roadmap for the Employment Rights Act 2025. Several provisions remain subject to regulations and consultation, so dates, thresholds and technical details may change. When they do, Mercury365 will update this guidance.
UKHSA is investigating 528 Salmonella cases, with imported eggs a potential link. Here’s what food businesses should be checking now.
On Saturday 23rd May, Rachel and John Stigwood set off at 4am and walked 35 miles from Oldham Athletic Football Ground to Whiston Hospital, all in memory of baby Maddie. Every pound raised is going to the Bereavement Midwifery Team at Whiston Hospital and The Christie at Oldham, two teams who were there for the family when they needed them most.
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