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Food recalls requirements

Food recalls requirements If you're a food manufacturer, wholesaler or importer it's important to know how to recall unsafe food as quickly as possible to avoid people becoming sick or injured from eating it. What are the requirements? Under Standard 3.2.2 - Food Safety Practices and General Requirements, if you're a food manufacturer, wholesale supplier or importer, you must be able to recall unsafe food. That means your business needs to:

• have a written recall plan in place
• use the plan if a recall is needed
• show the plan to an authorised officer if asked.

Published 30 September 2025

Preventing spread of COVID-19 and other contagious diseases

Preventing spread of COVID-19 and other contagious diseases The Food Standards Code requires food businesses to take all practicable steps to prevent contamination of their food service or processing environment. The best ways to prevent the spread of contagious diseases such as COVID-19 or foodborne illnesses are for everyone to maintain effective hygiene practices. Effective hygiene Maintaining effective hygiene includes:

• regular handwashing
• cleaning and sanitising facilities and equipment
• maintaining strict requirements around worker health and hygiene.

Published 30 September 2025

Mobile food business

Mobile food business If you're a mobile food business, you need to meet the same food safety requirements as other food businesses, regardless of the size of your business or how often you sell food.  Am I a mobile food business? Mobile food businesses use food premises designed to be permanent but movable, including: 

• food vans, trucks, trailers, bicycles, boats, planes and portable buildings (e.g. shipping containers)
• vehicles used for on-site food preparation (e.g. hamburgers, hot dogs and kebabs, coffee, juices, popcorn and fairyfloss), and the sale of any type of food including prepackaged food. 

Published 30 September 2025

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)   Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a transmissible and fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects cattle. Variant Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease (vCJD), a rare and fatal human neurodegenerative condition, results from exposure to BSE through eating contaminated beef or beef products. BSE has never been detected in cattle in Australia or New Zealand. The World Organization for Animal Health recognises both countries as having a negligible BSE risk status. What causes BSE? Most scientists think that BSE is caused by a protein called a prion. For reasons that are not completely understood, the normal prion changes into an abnormal prion that is harmful. Both vCJD and BSE are not contagious. A person (or a cow) cannot catch vCJD or BSE from being near a sick person or cow.…

Published 30 September 2025

Processing food safely

Processing food safely If you're a food business that processes food, it's important to use correct techniques so the food stays safe to eat. What are the requirements? Under Standard 3.2.2 - Food Safety Practices and General Requirements, food businesses must process food in a way that keeps it safe and suitable. This means the food is protected from contamination, processed using known safe techniques and kept at a safe temperature. Reduce your risk Start with safe food

• Before you process food, make sure it is safe and suitable (e.g. ingredients from reliable suppliers, safely stored, inspected). 

• Make sure food handlers know how to correctly use processing equipment…

  Published 30 September 2025

Keeping food at the right temperature

Keeping food at the right temperature As a food business you need to keep potentially hazardous food at certain temperatures to make sure it stays safe to eat. Potentially hazardous foods Potentially hazardous foods are foods that need to be kept at certain temperatures to minimise the risk of dangerous microorganisms or toxins. They include:

• raw and cooked meat or poultry
• foods containing eggs (cooked or raw)
• dairy products like milk, cream and fresh custard
• seafood
• sprouted seeds (like beans and alfalfa)
• cut fruit and vegetables
• cooked rice, and fresh or cooked pasta
• sandwiches, pizzas and sushi.

Published 30 September 2025

Receiving food

Receiving food If you're a food business, it's important to only accept delivery of food you are sure is safe and suitable. What are the requirements? Under Standard 3.2.2 - Food Safety Practices and General Requirements, food businesses must do everything they can to make sure they only receive food that is safe and suitable. This generally means the food is delivered:

• from a known supplier
• protected from contamination, and
• at a safe temperature.

• make sure you can identify all food that is delivered and you know the supplier's name and address
• ask your suppliers to protect food from contamination (e.g. in food-safe packaging)
• make sure someone is on-site…

  Published 30 September 2025

Starting or changing a food business

Starting or changing a food business If you're starting a new food business or changing the business name, location or activities of your current food business you must tell your local food regulatory agency. What are the requirements? Under Standard 3.2.2 - Food Safety Practices and General Requirements, if you're starting a new food business or changing the business's name, location or activities you must tell your local food regulatory agency. A list of food regulatory agencies is available on our website. Do I need to notify?

• No matter how big or small your food business is, or if it's home-based, online, mobile, a 'once only' activity, or you are using a permanent or…

  Published 30 September 2025

Proposal P1053 - Food Safety Management tools

Proposal P1053 - Food Safety Management tools Food service and related retail sectors are vitally important to the Australian economy and our way of life. Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has assessed a proposal to strengthen food safety and consistently deliver safer food to consumers, thereby supporting consumer confidence in these sectors. On 14 September 2022, the FSANZ Board approved a new food standard applying new regulatory measures to food service and retail businesses that handle potentially hazardous food. The new regulatory measures are: food handler training; food safety supervisor; and evidence to substantiate food safety management of key processes. The standard was agreed to by Food Ministers in November 2022 and took effect in December 2023.   Tools and guidance to improve food safety knowledge, risk management…

Published 30 September 2025

Temporary food premises

Temporary food premises If your business sells food at temporary events like markets, you need to meet the same food safety requirements as other food businesses, regardless of the size of your business or how often you sell food.  What are temporary food premises? Temporary food premises are structures that are:

• used to sell food at occasional events like a fete, market or show
• dismantled after the event, like a stall, tent or barbeque stand.

• Food businesses using temporary premises must comply with the Food Standards Code, including:
• …

  Published 1 October 2025