“DEFRA Guidance Odour Risk Assessments” ARE CHANGING TO “EMAQ+ Odour Risk Assessments for Kitchen Extracts”

• DEFRA Guidance: Previously the standard for kitchen extract system design and odour control, but withdrawn in 2017.
• Guidance Gap: Withdrawal left authorities and industry without clear guidelines for planning and nuisance assessment.
• EMAQ+ Guidance: New guidance developed by original DEFRA author, widely adopted by industry and local authorities.
• Airclean Alignment: Airclean will reference EMAQ+ instead of DEFRA in our documentation.
• Odour Risk Assessments: Airclean offers assessments to select suitable grease, smoke, and odour control equipment based on factors like dispersion, proximity, kitchen size, and cooking type.

The “DEFRA Guidance on the control of odour and noise from commercial kitchen exhaust” has been the go to guidance for the design of kitchen extract systems, and selection of odour control filtration since 2011, but was formally withdrawn in 2017.

This withdrawal was done to empower local authorities to make their own choices, but left Environmental Health, planning officers, and the industry, with no formal guidance to follow when approving planning applications, or assessing premises that were causing both noise and odour nuisances.

As a result of this a company called the Ricardo has employed the original author of the DEFRA guidance (Dr. Nigel Gibson) to recreate the guidance along with some updates, and offer this for use which is called “EMAQ+”.

This has been well adopted by local authorities and the industry alike, with many professionals (public and private sector) taking a course offered by Ricardo on the new EMAQ+ guidance.

For Airclean as manufacturers of grease, smoke and odour control equipment, is important for us to align with this, and as such you will start to see EMAQ+ referenced where previously you saw the DEFRA Guidance.

The most prominent place you will see this change is in our well used, “Odour Risk Assessment for Kitchen Extracts”.

Airclean carry out odour risk assessments daily, as a method to select suitable Grease, Smoke and Odour Control Equipment for potential clients designing and installing kitchen extract systems, and we offer a service where potential clients can simply complete these online, or via a short telephone conversation with us.

Odour Risk Assessments take into account the following :-

• Dispersion (Where does the extract discharge?)
• Proximity of Receptors (How close are the neighbours?)
• Size of Kitchen (Assessment of the kitchens output)
• Cooking Type (What type of cuisine, and cooking styles being used?)