Receiving Food Safely
FOOD ACT 2006 & FOOD SAFETY STANDARDS
WHAT IS REQUIRED?
Under Division 3 Part 5 of the Food Safety Standard
3.2.2, Food Safety Practices and General
Requirements, food businesses are expected to take
all practical measures to ensure that they do not
receive unsafe or unsuitable food. This means that
they must make sure that the food they receive:
• Is protected from contamination,
• Can be identified while it is on the premises, and
• Is at the correct temperature when it arrives.
HOW CAN I MAKE SURE FOOD IS NOT
CONTAMINATED WHEN IT ARRIVES AT MY
PREMISES
While it is not always possible to tell if the food coming
into a business is contaminated, the food business
must take practical steps to reduce the possibility of
contamination. The food business should take the
following steps:
• Ask food suppliers to make sure food is protected
from contamination during transportation and,
wherever possible, ask them to send it in packages
or containers.
• Check that the supplier has their own Food Safety
Plan in place,
• Check that food is covered or packaged when it
arrives and that the packaging or covering is not
damaged. Check the ‘Best Before’ or ‘Use By’
date – food labelled ‘Use By’ cannot be sold after
that date has passed, and must be rejected.
• Ensure that someone from the food business is on
hand to check that the shipment is complete, and
to inspect the food and check the temperature of
any potentially hazardous food.
Depending on the type of operation, it might be
difficult to check every item of incoming food. It might
be that the business could inspect incoming food on a
random basis.
The food business might also decide to check on food
from some other suppliers instead of ordering from the
same supplier each time.
If food delivered to a food business is contaminated or
is reasonably suspected of being contaminated, it
must be rejected and returned to the supplier or, with
the agreement of the supplier, destroyed.
The
incident should then be recorded. For example, the
food business receiving the food may suspect
contamination if packaging around the food is split,
torn, cracked or damaged. Food is contaminated if it
contains insects, rodent droppings, glass, metal or
other foreign matter, or if it has spoilt.
HOW CAN I MAKE SURE THAT I KNOW THE
SOURCE AND NAME OF FOOD ON MY
PREMISES
Upon request by an Environmental Health Officer
(EHO), a food business must be able to provide the
EHO with information on the suppliers of any food
sold by the business and what that food is. The
business needs this information, in case food on the
premise is found to be unsafe or contaminated in
some way and has to be returned to the supplier, or
destroyed.
Although most of the food a business buys will be
labelled with the name of the product and the name
and address of the manufacturer, importer or
packager of the food, there may also be unpackaged
or unlabelled food on the premises and the business
will need other ways of proving (a) What the food is
and (b) Where the food came from. This can be done
by using supplier invoices, or some other record of
suppliers.
A food business must not accept food unless both the
food and the supplier can be identified.
HOW DO I ENSURE THAT POTENTIALLY
HAZARDOUS FOOD ARRIVES AT THE RIGHT
TEMPERATURE?
Fact Sheet – ‘Thermometers and Using them with
Potentially Hazardous Food’, explains the legal
requirement for food businesses to have a working
thermometer on the premises. The food business
must also take practical steps to ensure that it does
not accept a delivery of potentially hazardous food
that is not at the correct temperature, or that has been
outside specific temperatures for longer than safe time
limits. Under the requirements of Standard 3.2.2,
potentially hazardous food delivered to a food
business must be:
• If it is cold – at a temperature of 5 C or below,
o
• If it is hot – at a temperature of 60 C or above,
o
• If it is frozen – frozen and not partly thawed, or
• It can be at another temperature – provided the
business delivering the food can demonstrate that
safe time limits have not been exceeded.
If potentially hazardous food delivered to a food
business does not meet these requirements, the food
must be rejected.
In most cases, businesses will want potentially
o
hazardous food delivered in chilled (5 C or below) or
frozen form, but there may be circumstances in which
a business is willing to accept potentially hazardous
food at other temperatures. For example, in the
situation where food leaves the supplier at the correct
temperature and where the transport time to the
business is short.
The FSANZ fact sheet Food Safety Standards –
Temperature Control Requirements, (available from
an EHO), provides more information on the
temperature control of potentially hazardous food and
the length of time that it can be kept safely at
o
o
temperatures between 5 C and 60 C. Generally,
where delivery times exceed two hours, the food must
be carried in refrigerated vehicles that can maintain
o
the food at a temperature of 5 C or below, or kept
frozen.
The following examples include some of the practical
steps a business might take to make sure that
potentially hazardous food is safe when it is delivered
to its premises;
• Arrange mutually acceptable, compliance delivery
temperatures with the business supplying and
delivering the food and formally agree that food will
be delivered frozen, cold or hot, within safe time
limits.
• If food should be frozen, check it when it is
delivered to the business, to make sure that it is
frozen and has not begun to thaw. Food which
has been partially thawed and re-frozen represents
a real food safety risk.
• If food should be cold or hot (i.e. potentially
hazardous), the food business must check the
temperature of the food when it is delivered,
o
making sure that it is at or below 5 C or at or
o
above 60 C, unless the business delivering the
food can demonstrate that safe time limits have not
been exceeded. This is now a requirement under
the Food Action 2006.
• If food should be delivered within safe time limits,
the food business must check the records of
delivery departure and arrival times, to ensure that
the delivery took place within the agreed time limit.
MORE INFORMATION & CONTACTING
COUNCIL
If you require any further information about this or any
other Food issue, please call Council’s Customer
Service Centre on 1300 878 001.
Alternatively a range of Fact Sheets along with
information regarding other Food and Licensing
issues can be accessed by visiting the Townsville City
Council website www.townsville.qld.gov.au and
following the links to Food & Safety Licensing.