Our Environmental Health Officers are responsible for monitoring food safety in Kingborough. This means working with food businesses and organisations that handle food to make sure it is safe to eat.
Food safety is serious – food poisoning in Australia affects about 5,500 people every day and can make people very sick. It can even result in death.
** INTRODUCTION OF A NEW FOOD SAFETY STANDARD IN AUSTRALIA**
A new Food Safety Standard, 3.2.2A – Food Safety Management Tools, will begin in Australia on 8 December 2023.
The Standard has new requirements for some food businesses. If this Standard applies to your food businesses you will be required to implement either two or three new food safety management tools.The tools are:
- food safety supervisor
- food handler training
- keeping records of key safe food handling practices (e.g. temperature records).
For further information about this new standard please visit www.health.tas.gov.au/food-safety-supervisor
Existing food businesses registered with Council that the new standard applies to have been notified by Council.
Food Businesses
In Tasmania food businesses need to be registered with the relevant Local Government Authority. This means that in Kingborough, businesses involved in the sale of potentially hazardous food need to register with the Kingborough Council. Please download and complete a Food Business Registration Form, or contact Council’s Environmental Health Department on (03) 6211 8255 for more information.
Businesses selling food that is not considered to be potentially hazardous (e.g. pre-packaged chocolate, bags of chips, canned goods, fresh fruit and vegetables) still need to notify the Council about what they are selling and of the business details. To do this a notification form needs to be filled out and returned to the Council. Notification is required to enable Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) from the Council to quickly action food recalls.
Our EHOs routinely inspect all registered food premises within the municipality and check to make sure that these businesses are operating in line with the requirements of the Food Act 2003 and the Food Safety Standards.
There are a lot of things that EHOs look for when doing inspections and these include:
- Cleanliness
- Safe food handling practices
- Appropriate temperature control of potentially hazardous food
- Food labelling
- Whether the premises and equipment are being maintained to an acceptable level
Mobile Food Businesses
Food prepared or sold from markets or outdoor events must comply with food safety laws. There are certain minimum requirements that need to be met. This is to ensure Tasmanians are eating food that has been safely stored, prepared, cooked and served.
The introduction of state wide registration of mobile food businesses means that there are now two types of food businesses operating within the state. Food businesses that are fixed in location (eg café’s, restaurants, supermarkets, take away shops), and mobile food businesses (eg food vans and temporary food stalls).
This guideline is intended to cover mobile food businesses that operate from a mobile structure. A mobile structure includes: a vehicle, trailer, cart, tent, stall, booth, pontoon, table, barbeque, pizza oven, or other mobile structure.
Please visit and download Guidelines for Mobile Food Businesses for further information.
In Tasmania the operation of Food Businesses is regulated by the Food Act 2003 (the Act). The Act contains specific provisions relating to the regulation of mobile food business to enable them to operate across the State with a single approval issued by a local government. The approval is in the form of a Certificate of Registration issued under the Act.
If you applied for a statewide registration – you can sell food in multiple council areas without obtaining multiple registrations.
However, a Certificate of Registration as a food business is not an approval to sell food anywhere in Tasmania – you must also comply with various planning, traffic and property owner obligations and approval processes.
If you only sought a one-off registration, you will be limited to selling food for the date you obtained the registration.
Please visit and download Mobile food businesses – statewide registration fact sheet for further information.
Labelling
If you produce food for sale, you must be aware of food labelling laws. For more information refer to the Department of Health and Human Service’s Guide to Labelling Packaged Food.
Nutritional Information Panels are also required for packaged foods intended for sale. Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) also has an online tool for calculating the nutritional information. The Nutrition Panel Calculator (NPC) helps food manufacturers calculate the average nutrient content of their food products and prepare a nutrition information panel.
Temporary Food Stalls (Charity & Community organisations)
Charity and community organisations that are involved in the manufacture and sale of food still need to comply with the requirements of Tasmania’s food legislation. Charity and community groups that are holding food stalls (including cake stalls, stalls selling jams and preserves, BBQs and sausage sizzles) need to be registered with Council. A registration form must be completed and returned to the Council at least two weeks prior to the planned event.
Please note that community events with more than one stall incur an event fee, which is due at the time of submitting your temporary food business application.
An administration fee is applied to all applications that are submitted less than 14 days before the event.
Please visit the Community Forms and Event Permits page for application forms (Application for Temporary Food Stalls) and further information.
Online Food Safety Training
Do Food Safely is an online food safety training program supported by the Tasmanian department of Public Health.
The training program consists of several food safety and hygiene topics and an assessment quiz. A certificate of Completion is automatically emailed once the assessment quiz has been successfully completed.
Visit Do Food Safely to get started.
