Changes to the Food Act

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:

Food control plans – written plans for managing food safety on a day-to-day basis. These are used by higher-risk businesses; and

National programmes – “a set of food safety rules for medium and low-risk businesses. You must register, meet food safety standards under the Act, keep some records, and get checked.”

If you have a food business, you must adhere to one of these two controls, together with the general principles under the Act.

https://www.mpi.govt.nz/food-safety/food-act-2014/overview/