Food Safety
This page has been set up to give you an insight as to how we deal with the legalities of Food Safety in NZ as a fresh fruit & vegetable wholesaler. It is also a great place for you to download our certificates and other “stuff” that you may need at your end.
We know that as café & restaurant owners, catering companies and the like, you are required to adhere to a set of rules and requirements in relation to the food you prepare.
As we are a wholesaler of fresh food, our rules and requirements are similar but not as in depth, and at this stage, not the focus for the council!
While the legislation goes through its current changes we thought we’d chat to council and other experts in the field to see what we should be doing.
We asked the council, if there was anything extra we could be doing in terms of their legal requirements. We thought that maybe there was some way we could get a GOLD A for our Food Hygiene Grade??? Was this even possible? We also wanted to know if it was beneficial or necessary to pay the big bucks and be audited by the Food Safety Authority?
The long and short of it?
- We had our site visit – got the big A grade (download here). However they don’t do A++ or Gold A’s in our category. They did however write a glowing report on the field notice (download here) they left with us.
- When I spoke to the "experts" over the phone they suggested we wait it out in 2009. They said that given we are not producing or manufacturing food AND that we are dealing mainly with fruit & veges, we are fairly low risk and our current food safety programme sounded like a great start and it was more than ample in terms of the actual legal requirements.
So WHAT DO WE HAVE?
Along with our Food Premises High Level of Compliance we have an in depth Health & Safety System (download cover page here) This, as it should be, is ongoing and forever being developed and modified.
In simple terms this is a licensed system which encourages and promotes the best practices to provide and maintain a safe and healthy work place. It encompasses a detailed Food Safety Programme amongst everything else from hazard identification to emergency procedures. It is extremely comprehensive and a work in progress. Feel free to pop in and have a read!
Should you require more information or would like to chew the fat, call Tash on 021 4488 25 or 574 0004 Extn 0
Other links you may find helpful
www.nzfsa.govt.nz
www.legislation.govt.nz
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