The Food Act 2014 (the Act) has been amended recently.
The key change to the Act is the introduction of a scale assessing the level of food health and safety risk for each business dealing with food. This scale includes all food-related businesses, from multinational food processing companies to street-corner coffee carts.
All food businesses must adhere to different levels of control depending on their risk. The Ministry of Primary Industries monitors this through:
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Food control plans – written plans for managing food safety on a day-to-day basis. These are used by higher-risk businesses; and
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National programmes – a set of food safety rules for medium and low risk businesses. Businesses must register, meet food safety standards, keep records to show that food being sold is safe, and allow a verifier to assess compliance.
If you have a food business, you must adhere to one of these two controls, together with the general principles under the Act. MPI has created a tool to help business owners find out which rules they need to follow.
Food Safety Overview
Food Safety Rules