You are a food handler (manipulador de alimentos) if your job means touching food that someone is going to eat: you prepare it, serve it, sell it unpackaged, store it or transport it. Waiters, cooks and kitchen assistants, bakers, pastry cooks, baristas, deli, butcher's, fishmonger's or greengrocer's counter staff, canteen staff and food industry workers.
What the law says
- The business is primarily responsible for food safety (Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, Article 1).
- The business must ensure that its food handlers are supervised and instructed or trained in food hygiene «in line with their work activities», and that whoever runs the food safety management system (HACCP, APPCC in Spanish) is trained in its principles.
- There is no official card any more. Spanish Royal Decree 109/2010 repealed Royal Decree 202/2000, which regulated it. According to AESAN there is no official format: course certificates are in free format, are valid throughout Spain and do not expire by law, although the business must review and update your knowledge.
- No one approves these courses. Training providers need no authorisation and may not claim to be approved by the Spanish Ministry or by AESAN.
Your part
Apply the good hygiene practices you learn here and those set by your employer, report it if you are ill (module 3) and follow the workplace's food safety plan (module 7). That is mainly what an inspection checks: that you work properly and that the business supervises you and corrects what goes wrong.
Source: Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs (consolidated text), Article 1 and Annex II, Chapter XII · Spanish Royal Decree 109/2010 (repeals Royal Decree 202/2000 on food handlers; in Spanish), sole repealing provision · AESAN, information note on food handler training (2013, in Spanish), points 1 to 5 · AESAN, guidance document on food handler training (2010, in Spanish)