Croatia: staff sickness and training

“Law” is a binding rule. “Official guidance” is not law, but inspectors expect it. “Chef Hygiene default” is a value the app checks against where no rule gives a number.

• LawEveryone who touches, prepares or serves food needs the food hygiene course certificate before starting work, renewed every 5 years. The course is 15 teaching hours at a county public health institute. The employer pays (Act on protection from infectious diseases, Art. 37 and 39).
• LawStaff in direct contact with unpacked food need a medical exam before starting and then every year, including stool tests. The result goes in the sanitary card (sanitarna iskaznica), which the employer keeps (same Act and Rulebook NN 116/2018).
• LawPeople with an infectious disease that food can carry, or infected skin disease, must not work with food. After typhoid, dysentery or salmonellosis they need negative tests first.
• LawThe business must train the HACCP team and every worker whose job affects food safety, check that the training worked and keep records (Rulebook NN 124/2025, Art. 6).