Welcome everyone to the City of Boroondara food safety training session for registered
food businesses. Thanks for joining us. My name is Will. I'm an Environmental Health Officer at
the City of Boroondara, and with me helping is Lorenzo, another Environmental Health Officer.
So, we're going to be turning off our cameras so we can focus on the content for this session.
It'll be a PowerPoint presentation that will be emailed at the end of the presentation, probably tomorrow to all food businesses, along with any supporting documentation that we present
to you today. Feel free to ask any questions in the Q&A chat that you will see on the top of your
Teams there. Lorenzo will be fielding those questions as we go, and we will be answering
them as we go. If there's anything that he can't answer or that needs further follow up, we'll deal
with them at the end of the session. So, I'm just going to share my screen and we'll get into it.
Hopefully everyone can see that. Yeah, here we go. The Food Safety Training. So, we haven't run one
of these since I think 2021 was the last one, and that was to do with COVID changes. We do
recognise that we have dropped the ball a bit on this sort of engagement with proprietors,
so we're reinvigorating this program. You also today would have got from our communications team,
an email with our food safety newsletter, which is something that we hoped to get out a week ago,
but there were a few delays and changes. But that touches on a lot of the stuff we're talking
about here today as well, but in less detail, and you don't have the opportunity to ask the
Q&A questions as we go. So, you may have already read that, and you may understand some of this, or maybe you've already clicked some links and had a look at the information on that newsletter. But
we'll go through in much more detail here. So, newsletters have started up again as of
now. And again, we've dropped the ball for several years on those. And the food safety training will be run about three times a year. So, subjects or topics we'll be covering tonight,
this evening, is the changes to the food safety program requirements. So,
there are changes about whether you need a food safety program or not. That actually came into effect last year, end of last year, but we had decided to address them at each premises
individually as we do our inspections, because it may or may not apply to you, and we needed to assess on an individual basis. So, some of you may already know whether you do
or don't need a food safety program. To some of you, it may be new, so we'll talk about that.
The food safety training and process substantiation changes. So, this is going to come
into effect on a couple of days from now, the 8th of December. Some of the changes have a five-year
stay on them, so you've got time to comply with those changes. Some are pretty much immediate,
but we won't be obviously inspecting you till next year, if you've already had your inspections, that gives you time to comply with those changes and to implement them.
We're going to talk about allergen labelling requirements. So, if you are, we'll talk about
whether firstly you're required to have a label on the food that you make. Some businesses will,
most of you probably won't. And then we'll talk about, and the allergen labelling requirements
and what it needs to meet if you do have to have a label. And then just generally complying with food
safety laws, and time for questions at the end. So, we'll get into the first section,
which is food safety program changes. So, most food businesses are no longer required
to have a food safety program, or to keep food safety records. Most states and territories,
or all other states and territories, as far as I know, don't have a requirement to have a food safety program and records like we have had. Department of Health have brought us in line
with that. The Victorian Department of Health, and they're focusing on a reorientation to a
risk-based approach and training and development of staff instead, which does have better outcomes
overall for your business. Rather than just having a document sitting there that no-one ever looks at necessarily and doesn't really help in the day-to-day sort of
risk-based approach and training for staff. So, depending on your business model and the food that you are preparing, you may be required to maintain a food safety program and records. So,
if that's the case, you can develop your own food safety program by going to www.foodsmart.vic.gov.au and developing one there. So, for this is do you require a food safety
program? So, we'll go into the different scenarios. So, if you're a Class 1 food business, and that is an aged care, childcare hospital, so they're really high-risk sort of settings,
there is no change. You're still required to have a food safety program that you develop independently with a food safety auditor, and have it audited every year by an independent
third-party food safety auditor. That doesn't change, so no change for you.
If you're a Class 2 food business, so that's pretty much your café, restaurant takeaway,
you are selling high risk food that you're handling at the premises, previously, so you were required to have the food safety program and do the records. Now, most of you don't
have to have that. So only some businesses that are doing extra high-risk activities are required
to have a food safety program and records. So, you must be able to still demonstrate
your food handling skills and knowledge and processes and have all that in line in place.
So, these are the extra high-risk activities that require you to have a food safety program
still. So, if you are doing sous vide cooking and you're cooking at more than 55 degrees, but
less than 75 degrees for your final kill step when you're cooking the food, then you're required to
have one. You can use FoodSmart as it says there, or if you choose to develop your own non-standard
programs, so not using this standardised one through FoodSmart, then you'd need to have that
audited by a food safety auditor. Probably better just to use the standard one, because there's a
lot of costs involved with developing your own. The second scenario that you will need to
have a food safety program, you're legally required, is if you're selling or preparing,
rather preparing food that doesn't include a temperature kill step to minimise the growth
of pathogens. So, sushi, cured meats, aged beef, smoked foods, Chinese-style roast meats. Again,
you can do the same thing, use FoodSmart, but if the activity you are doing isn't listed there,
you may need to do your own independent one. Sushi has its own, for example, Chinese-style roast meats has its own – sorry, it is included in FoodSmart. Not sure about aged beef and smoked
foods, you would need to have a look yourselves. So, acidification and fermentation. So,
that's where you're doing fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, century eggs. Same scenario in terms of whether you need a food safety program as that previous
one. The preparation of ready to eat foods containing raw unshelled eggs. So, you're making
raw egg mayonnaise, aioli, tiramisu, mousse. Most businesses now use pasteurised, pre-pasteurised
eggs. You buy them in a bag or something from what I've seen. Ninety-nine per cent of businesses do
that now, or pre-buy their mayonnaise, aioli, tiramisu, whatever it might be, or just use egg-free options, don't use egg in it. There's very few businesses that still use raw egg
to make that product, because of the very high risk of salmonella contamination. But if you do
choose to, it's fine, but you will need to have a food safety program and records to do that.
Preparation of ready to eat and rare, minced, finely chopped red meats. So,
that's things like steak tartare, raw or rare hamburgers. So, there is, if you want to do that,
in terms of the program, you have to develop your own. It's not included in any Department
of Health one. You wouldn't really probably want to be, I don't know why you'd want to sell rare
or raw hamburgers. I guess steak tartare is an acquired fancy food, maybe you want to do that,
but if you are doing it, there's no standardised template. You must develop your own for that,
and then you can go through that process and have it audited every year. Preparation of ready to eat raw and rare poultry and game meats. So, same thing applies,
you need to have an independent program. So, that's poultry meats including chicken, duck,
and goose. Where you might have minced or serve it raw game meats like kangaroo, wild boar,
emu. So, you can read all that there. Off-site catering. So, this is where,
and if you read here, so off-site catering where ready to eat, potentially hazardous food is prepared or partially prepared in one location, and then transported to another location where
the food is served at a catering event. So, it doesn't include catering events where food has
been prepared and delivered to an event, where food doesn't require any further preparation,
such as reheating, portioning, or garnishing. So straight-up delivery, that's fine, doesn't. But
if you're going to be doing part-preparation, and then taking it somewhere else and doing
further preparation, you need to have, you can use the FoodSmart program for that. So, the standardised one. So, you've probably got a few caterers here, we always kind of do. So,
if that's you, you may need to have a program. So, any other complex process or activity
that doesn't involve the use of temperature control to minimise the growth of pathogenic,
or toxigenic organisms. So, pasteurisation, thermal processing, vacuum sealing. So,
if you're vacuum sealing your food, you want to do the atmosphere modified packaging, you're pulling
out the oxygen, you're adding other chemical, gases to minimise the growth of bacteria,
that’s the reason why you might need this. And sorry, my apologies, the pasteurisation
and thermal processing is separate to any other activity that doesn't involve temperature control.
So, obviously they do involve temperature control. So, other examples, dehydration, and you must
develop your own nonstandard. I think Department of Health are working on, from what I understand, a supplement for dehydration. That's coming. There's been a
delay because there's a restructure at Department of Health, but it is coming. So, that's that. Now,
that was Class 2 food businesses. So, only if you've got those specific scenarios
do you need to have a food safety program. When you're a Class 3 business, and that might be a service station, convenience store somewhere that’s got high-risk food, but it is pre-packaged,
and they don't handle it unpackaged or process it in any way. So, previously you were required
to keep minimum food safety records about your deliveries and temperatures and stuff
like that. Now you're not required to. Only if you are a warehouse or distribution centre
selling food to another premises that sells that to the public, you are required to keep
a list of food supplies and that's it. And probably that doesn't involve most of you.
So, just to summarise this section, so Class 1, there's no changes. Class 2,
doing one of the high-risk activities, you must have either FoodSmart program,
or develop your own non-standard that is audited by Department of Health approved auditor. And if
you click this link, it takes you to the auditor details. That will take you to FoodSmart. You'll get this, as I said at the beginning, via email, this whole presentation. So, you'd be
able to click and go around and do what you want. As I mentioned earlier, some of those processes
you are not allowed to use FoodSmart, you have to have an independent program. So, if you're Class 2
and you're not doing one of these extra high-risk activities, then you don't have to have a program or records, but we still recommend that you maintain these. You should, it's best practice
to have them there, they will help. If someone needs to refer to the program, you've got all the
food safety rules there to look at. But also, it's good to have the records done, because you know
that your staff are checking the temperatures and doing everything they need to be doing,
but you don't have to. You must still be able to demonstrate food safety skills and knowledge.
If you're a Class 3 food premises, like we just discussed, you don't need to have all the records anymore. Only if you're a warehouse or distributor,
you need to keep a list of food suppliers. Right, Section 2. We are talking about
food safety training, and substantiation of critical controls and processes. And by the way,
if you've got any questions about what we've just talked about, again, put it in the Q&A for Lorenzo to respond to. This is a pretty big change, so really important
that we get it right. And if you have any questions, please do ask. So, as I said,
the Department of Health are shifting the focus to food safety risks. And it's really a big change
and takes effect in two days' time. The Department of Health have only really just finished properly
developing the resources for proprietors, and providing sort of seminars for us to understand
it. So, it's a little bit delayed in terms of the application of it. We'll go through
some extensions of time for some of this anyway, so it's not like you need to do it immediately, but some things you can start working on now. So, there's three requirements, depending on
the business that you have. You may need to comply with all of these or just part
of these. Let's go through what they. The three requirements are food handler training, food safety supervisor training, and substantiation of critical food safety controls.
So, Requirement 1 is food handler training, and it's applicable to if you're a Class 1 or Class 2
business, as we discussed before what they are. So currently, everyone needs to have knowledge about
food safety who handles food at your business. So, that's always been the case, they should know
what they're doing specific to their role, but there's no been no specific training requirements.
From the 8th of December, all food handlers, and that says including volunteers. We ran this
training at 10.00am, and we had someone asking if it applies to volunteers. So, in case anyone asked that again, yes, it does, who handle high-risk food. Must be able to demonstrate
to council officers they have the skills and knowledge. That's the same as before, I guess,
but you must keep records of all training completed. So, everyone needs to be trained,
and you need to have records of that training. That's a big change. So, there's free online
training, and we'll go through what that is for. We won't go into the whole training, but it's free from Department of Health, and you can get all of your food handlers to do that and keep
those records. That would be fine for that one. You can develop your own in-house training if you
prefer to do that. There's no right or wrong way, as long as you're covering the correct topics in
your training. So, you must teach the following: Safe food handling. That's your temperature
control, potentially hazardous food, and temperature danger zone. So, your two/four-hour rule, keeping food out in the temperature danger zone for minimum times.
Food contamination. So, looking at your risks of cross contamination and allergen cross contamination. The cleaning and sanitising of food contact
surfaces and chemicals and using heat sanitising. Personal hygiene. So, keeping your hair, nails and
skin, uniforms clean, hand washing, and exclusion after you've been ill with gastro for 48 hours,
after you're better, before you come back to work. All of the stuff that's been in the food safety
training for years, that's no different. But if you want to develop your own, it must include that. So really, probably easier to do this. I'm just going to, last time when I clicked this,
it didn't open. Oh, it's going to open, good. So, do food safely. So, this is a Department of
Health. You can start, go through it all. You get a certificate at the end. All of your staff will
get a certificate if they do that, and you can keep that on record to show that they have passed
the training, that they've got the knowledge. So, we recommend that obviously, if you've got a new staff member, they have that initial training to do that. And then you should really be
scheduling regular food safety refresher training, whether that's Do Food Safety, or for your own
training. And especially if you update any of your processes and foods and equipment and what
you do basically, a good idea to re-do Do Food Safely. So, keep records, and if we request copies
of those records, you are required to provide them. So, do keep records. That’s Requirement 1.
Now, Requirement 2. As I said, just back to Requirement 1 quickly. I know it takes
effect in two days’ time, but most of you have had your inspections already. In all reality,
we won't be expecting you until next year. So, if you start working on that, and maybe aim to get them all done over the next couple of months. We're obviously going to be a little bit,
given the short timeframe, not coming down hard on anyone, just get onto it now and start
training everyone up on Do Food Safely, if you haven't already. We have been recommending it for some time anyway. It's just good practice to have all your staff have Do Food Safely.
Requirement 2, food safety supervisors. So, this is another big change. If you have a Class 1 or
Class 2 business, or 3A, I don't think we've got any 3A businesses registered in this council,
so we won't focus on that. So currently, you are required to nominate a food safety supervisor. So,
someone who is trained and qualified at your business to supervise food safety. From the 8th
of December, food safety supervisor certificates are only valid for five years when they expire
in Victoria, and you need to re-sit and qualify, and provide a new certificate.
Because it's such a short period and Department of Health umm-ed and aah-ed about this for a
little while, before they have put an extension on to meet that requirement for five years,
they didn't want a rush on the food safety training courses out there at the last minute,
and then people just not being able to comply. Having said that, if you’ve got a really old
certificate, you’re probably due for a new one anyway, and things change. We talked about in
the last session, allergens are now much more focussed than before. There’s always emerging
and new risks, and things change over time, so good idea that you book in ASAP and get that done.
Don't wait to the last minute till the 8th of December 2028. But you do have until that time, if
your certificate is you know old. Otherwise, your certificate will expire every five years and need
re-doing, as we discussed. So, that's that one. Requirement 3, the substantiation of critical
food safety controls. Now with this one, it's applicable to Class 2 businesses that aren't
required to have a food safety program, so that's probably most of you. If you don't need a program,
you need to be able to substantiate what you are doing, basically. So, you can do one of the following. Demonstrate compliance with the standards, keeping written records. So,
you can develop your own program using FoodSmart still. Although you're not required to do that,
this can be one of the ways that you substantiate your processes. I know it's kind of contradictory, they say you don't have to have one, but hey you can do one to meet this requirement.
This requirement is actually a nationwide requirement. So, Department of Health are trying to fit it into our current system, and it might seem a little bit messy, but really,
it's quite easy if you either just want to do a food safety program and keep the records like
before. But there are other ways you can now comply, so you don't have to do it that way. It
can be one or all of the methods. So, you can keep standard operating procedures, demonstrate at the
inspections your knowledge. There's a full guide here from Department of Health. So, I encourage
you to have a look at that. And again, you'll be able to click the link from the slides that we send out tomorrow, and it goes through everything. And there's a link on there to a document you can
download, and it goes through everything. I think we've jumped a slide somewhere,
let me get back to where we were. So, if we now look at, basically
they’ve broken it down in to three steps for you. So, I'm going to try and play this
video. It didn't work earlier; it had no audio when I tried to play it. Let's see how we go.
Step 1, preparation. This step is about being prepared for – and, no audio again, I'm sorry for
that. You can click on the video yourselves by the slides that I will send out, so don't worry about
that. We'll go through it all here anyway. So, Step 1, just be ready to discuss – oh,
someone said they can hear the audio. There is audio, okay. I can't hear at my end. That's good,
I will play it. We are going to discuss everything in that video anyway.
Step 1, preparation. This step is about being prepared for a food safety assessment at your
business. This means you and your staff are ready to discuss and demonstrate to the EHO
how you prepare and handle food safely. To demonstrate your knowledge of high-risk foods,
you can highlight them on your menu. If you don't have a menu for your business, you can make one,
or simply have a list of the high-risk foods you sell. To assist you in discussing your food
processes, you can use a flow chart, or just a list that notes all the different process steps you take for each of your high-risk menu items. This can include steps such as storage,
preparation, cooking, and reheating for example. Remember, your EHO can provide you with advice,
information and a wide range of food safety resources. For further information about what
we have discussed in this video, please visit www.health.vic.gov.au/food safety,
to access your copy of A Recipe for Food Safety, a food safety management tool for food businesses.
Step 2, food safety management is the next video in this series.
Okay, so I'm going to assume you could all hear that. I couldn't my end, but that's fine. So,
this first step is about as it said, being ready to demonstrate. So, have an understanding,
as it said there. You could highlight the high-risk foods on your menu, or just have your
menu and show us your understanding of what the high-risk foods are. That's a fairly easy step,
which is good. But it just shows to us that you understand what a high-risk food is, and that you're aware that this is something you need to take extra care for, and you've got
controlled steps in place to manage that. So, Step 2 is food safety management. I'm
going to try this video. Let me know if you can't hear it. If I hear nothing, I'll assume you can.
Step 2, food Safety management. This step looks at how you can demonstrate to the
EHO the procedures you have in place, and the actions you take to ensure that you and
your staff are effectively managing food safety. There are three areas that are assessed by the
EHO. Number 1, food process controls. You need to demonstrate that food is kept at the right
temperatures, protected from contamination, and correct food handling practices are implemented.
The EHO assesses the controls you have in place to ensure food is safe and suitable for consumption.
Number 2, hygiene controls. You need to demonstrate that you and your staff
understand and follow correct cleaning and sanitising practices, and show knowledge of your health and hygiene responsibilities. The EHO assesses the environment in which you
prepare and handle food, and how you ensure it is free from sources of contamination.
Number 3, management procedures. You need to demonstrate how you train your staff,
what actions you take to fix food safety issues, and how you manage customer complaints. The EHO
assesses the suitability of your food safety management procedures. There are a wide range
of ideas and tools you can use to demonstrate how you manage food safety. Here are some suggestions.
Showing the EHO how you keep high-risk food under temperature control. Displaying food safety
posters in your business. Monitoring food safety practices through photographs, logbooks, or diary
notes. Ensuring staff complete food handler training such as Do Food Safely, and having
documented cleaning and sanitising procedures. For further information about what we have
discussed in this video, please visit www.health.vic.gov.au/food safety,
to access your copy of a recipe for food safety, a food safety management tool for food business.
I’m not sure that wouldn’t go full screen, my apologies. At least you can all see the kind of music I listen to on the work computer when I am trying to do my
work. A lot of ambient relaxation reduces stress. So, from that video, I assume you could all hear
it. So, basically you can demonstrate all of the, and it's basically what you heard on the
video. It’s either demonstrate by showing us, if you're in the middle of doing that procedure
or that's something you're going to do shortly, or demonstrate by your knowledge, we can ask you. So,
that's one of the ways, and you can just give us the answer of how you manage this particular risk,
what do you do to keep food safe, basically. So, hygiene controls. This is again from
the video. So, are doing correct cleaning and sanitising, health and hygiene responsibilities,
food kept free from contamination, how you train staff, actions to fix food safety issues,
and how you manage customer complaints. We have developed, this is from the document,
the recipe for food safety that they've put out. Some of this stuff is, we've done the
work for you, basically. So, it's a high-risk food flowchart. So, hopefully this should open.
This is one of the management tools that they referred to. I'm just going to close that down,
because it's opening here for some reason. Hopefully you can all see that.
So, this is just a template you may want to use if you choose to use this to substantiate your
practices. It's not saying you have to use this, but this is something they recommend you can do. So, here you've got the menu item, the date it was reviewed and who reviewed it,
and you would go through each step. So, receiving storage preparation, cooking, cooling, reheating, display, transportation and serving, and delete any non-relevant
step to that process that you’re not using. I'm going to go back to the presentation. Oh,
it's popped me back to the beginning, apologies. Where were we? Here, cleaning
and sanitising schedule. Doing this again. So, you can have a cleaning and sanitising
schedule, where you've listed everything that needs cleaning on a daily, weekly and monthly
schedule, who is going to do it, and you've checked it – someone's checked that that's done,
and whoever's cleaned it has ensured. Again, you don't have to do this. This is a nice way to show that you're complying. Just on another note, cleaning, as well as a bunch
of other things that are within these documents that I'm going to show you, are some of the main reasons businesses will fail their inspection. So, it can't hurt regardless to do this. It's
something that's going to help you to continue to comply with the requirements, and to keep your FoodSafe and your customers happy, obviously. So, if you were to do something like this regardless,
it will be good for your business. A before work checklist. Again, this
is something that is not even necessarily I don't think in the document from Department of Health,
but we felt as a team that this might be a good idea to provide to you as a tool, that might
help you to comply. Again, if we are looking at businesses that failed their inspections,
the top reasons are listed here really. So, if you were to have a before work everyday checklist that
you'd go through and check, like has cleaning being done, is there pest activity, is the handwash basin working, you’ve got paper towel and soap, is the probe thermometer working? You've got
all the right products that you need for cleaning and sanitising. Is all the food storage correct?
These are the sort of main things that businesses fail for. So, if you do this,
it's just going to help you. It's another tool in your arsenal to help you to comply. This is one of the ones from Department of Health in that document, the recipe for food safety, but
we've just sort of taken the example out of there and put it in a document to say save you the time.
This is similar to, I guess, the daily checklist, but it's not a daily one, it's just a management review checklist. And you can do this on whatever schedule that you think is appropriate, whether
you were to do it weekly, monthly, whatever. And it goes through more detail at a higher level. So, staff induction, personal hygiene, cleaning. So, are the correct cleaning procedures being followed
in general. Food storage, have we overstock, et cetera, is there risk of cross contamination? So,
it goes through all this kind of stuff, preparation, temperature and time control, thermometers, business and equipment maintenance, pest control, customer complaints, has there
been any and how have you handled it? And then corrective actions that you've taken. So, it's more of a high-level management review checklist that Department of Health have recommended.
I'm going to start shutting some of these down, because that’s better. As I said, you can just
use FoodSmart food safety program, develop yours there by that method and records. Regardless of
whether you do that or not, it doesn't include things like a management review checklist, or a before work checklist, or a cleaning schedule. It's still a good idea to do all those
things, because it's going to help you overall. You can display posters. This is a link to the
Department of Health website where the food safety posters live. Food handler training,
that's Do Food Safely, and food allergen training. We do recommend everybody who handles food does
food allergen training. This is through an approved Department of Health organisation.
And it's another tool, again, to help you comply. It's a very high risk of if something goes wrong
with allergens, you can kill someone there and then. That's the sort of thing you get prosecuted for as a criminal offence. So, we don't want that happening please. And that's important that you
do allergen training as well with your staff. And then response, that's the third video here
from Department of Health on YouTube. See if I can make this one go larger for you.
Step 3, Response. This step is about receiving, discussing, and understanding the results of the
food safety assessment, and any future actions that you may need to take. To demonstrate to the
EHO your ability to improve food safety in your business, you can review food handling practices,
record actions you have taken, or processes you have put in place to improve food safety,
and take before and after photos to document improvements you have made. Remember,
your local council EHO can provide you with advice, information, and a wide range of food
safety resources. For further information about what we have discussed in this video, please visit www.health.vic.gov.au/food safety, to access your copy of a recipe for food safety,
a food safety management tool for food businesses.
So, that was the final video. It's taking me back to here, let me just find my spot.
So, as you would have seen in the video, this one's about your response to a council
inspection. So, we've done inspection and assessment, and how you respond to that. So, demonstrate that you've reviewed your processes, record the actions that you’ve put in place to
improve your food safety, you can take before and after photos to document the improvements,
however you choose to do that. But this is about how you respond to feedback and
education provided in your council assessment. So, again if you've got any questions, put them
in the Q&A. But in summary here, we've got the first change, food handler training. So, from
the 8th of December this year, all food handlers are required to do a basic level of training in
the area of work that they are working in. You can do it through Do Food Safely, or develop your own,
but you're required to keep records of that. Again, just work towards that over the next
month or two. We're coming into Christmas, you’re probably busy, and then you're probably shut for a while, just at least when you come back. Food safety supervisor training. From 8th
of December, food safety supervisor certificates expire after five years. You have a grace period
until the 8th of December 2028 to comply, but please don't leave it to the last minute.
If you've got an old one especially, you should enrol as soon as possible.
And Number 3, the substantiation of critical food safety controls. You can either do,
use Do Food Safely, create a food safety – sorry, you can use FoodSmart, my bad. Use FoodSmart,
create a food safety program and use the records there. Either way, you need to demonstrate that
you have the adequate knowledge to keep food safe. But in addition, or instead of the FoodSmart,
you can use other methods to demonstrate and to substantiate what you are doing, that we've
discussed. And all of those documents will be emailed as well as this PowerPoint tomorrow.
Now we're going to talk about allergen labelling requirements. So firstly, do you need to have a label on your food? So, there's specific scenarios where you will need
to. Most of you won't need to. So, say if you're going to make food from, like take-home meals,
from the same place that you're selling it, you don't have to have a label. So, I know of a few,
quite a few businesses that do that, so you are not required to have full labelling. You can and it's nice to. If you are going to have full labelling though, you need to make it
compliant. You don't have an option of making it not compliant, just because you're not required to put labelling on. If you choose to, and you are not required to, it still has to comply.
So, you don't have to also, if you are making it in one location, transporting it unpackaged
to another location, like a market stall, and then packaging it in front of customers. So,
you are making cupcakes, you take them in a box or a container to a market, and then you package
them in a bag in front of the customers, you are exempt also from full labelling requirements. So,
obviously this doesn't apply restaurants, cafés, takeaway places. So that's that.
So, plain English allergen labelling, is what we're going to talk about. So,
this is the changes that are coming in 25th of February 2024. So, obviously allergens have the
potential to cause harm. So, amendments to the required, the codes are requiring businesses
to change how you label food that is required to have a label, to note what the allergens are. So,
the changes are, you must have it in a specific format and location on food labels,
and use simple plain English terms in bold font. So, you can still, by the way, and it's got it
down the bottom here, if you've got old labelled food that are labelled prior to 25 February 2024
when it comes in, you can still sell that up until 25 February 2026. But if past that date,
you can't sell any food that doesn't have this required labelling on it, if you're required to have the labelling in first place, if you meet the requirements.
So, we're going to go through each section of a label of ingredients. So,
the statement of ingredients. So, this is required, the required format from the 25th of February next year. That's how it would look. And what does that mean? So, the
allergens must be declared for each ingredient. So, if you look here we've got, for example,
parmesan cheese, milk. That's the allergen or that ingredient. Flour, it's got wheat, for example.
So, the declarations in the statement of ingredients have to be in a required names
that are outlined in the Food Standards Code, and they must be in bold font, be in the same
size and type as the other font. And that's the example I just gave there, parmesan cheese, milk, flour, wheat.
And all ingredients must be listed in their common descriptive or generic name. And
if we have a look at what that means on the code. So, here are the common names on the left. So,
it needs to be in a, milk solids may be used to describe milk powder, et cetera. So,
you can go through that at your own leisure if that's something that you're going to be doing is your labelling, just giving you an idea of what it means.
You need to use very generic names for that. Like the milk, for example. You got parmesan cheese, milk.
Notice it doesn't say dairy, it just says milk. The summary statement, so this is where you have
an allergen statement, basically. So, it contains egg, almond milk, gluten, sesame in this instance.
So, it must be in bold font to contrast, completely bold font to contrast with the
statement of ingredients. The generic name. So, you can't use generic names here anymore. You used
to be able to use like tree nuts, for example. Now you need to use the individual name of the
nut. So, almond, Brazil nut, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, et cetera. And all of those are listed
in the Food Standards Code. You can find all of that if you are labelling your food.
So, the required names for some allergens differ between the statement of ingredients and the summary statement. So, important to look at the standards, and it has a table in there of what to
use in each instance. So, this is in the statement of ingredients it's got wheat, but in the summary
statement is wheat. And you would include gluten if that's also present. And summary,
in the statement of ingredients you might have barley, rye or oats, but in the summary statement,
you need to have gluten. So, important to understand that they might not match up.
And then we go into the recommendation which is, you don't have to have this, it's not coming into effect from the 25th of February 2024, but we do recommend you have
precautionary allergen label on your labelling. We also recommend if you've got a café
or a restaurant, and we've recommended for some time now, that you have a precautionary allergen
label on menus, on display cabinets, wherever on your websites, to something to this effect
as well, may contain, due to the presence of allergens in the kitchen and shared equipment,
all food may contain traces of allergens, is a nice simple one to put on there. You
can list all those allergens, or it’s up to you how you do that. It's not mandatory, but if you
are going to list all the allergens, you can't really be missing any, because then it can be confusing and incomplete. So, you're probably better to keep it more generic, may contain
traces. Not on this label, of course, but that's on your menus, website, your display cabinets,
if you've got a café or something and you're not labelling the food. But for this purpose,
you must list the specific allergen. So, not mandatory, like we've said. So,
if you're going to include one, you need to include any allergen that is present
in any food handling or storage areas, or where shared equipment's used. So, even if you take all
precautions to remove allergens from surfaces, there's always a risk of that allergen being in
the food. No matter how careful you are, if it's in that same facility, there's always a risk. So, you'll need to have a, if you're going to have an allergen, a precautionary allergen label,
you need to list all the allergens that are there. And just finally on that, it's important to note
that you can't make contradictory statements. It's going to be illegal, and confusing for customers,
and could lead to someone becoming very unwell. So, you see in this example, we've put egg,
an egg in the ingredients and that it does contain, and then may contain traces of egg.
You can't do that. So, just be cautious not to do that. We have seen that before, believe it or not,
in food businesses. So, we can't have that. Finally on this, product testing. So,
if you're going to make an allergy-free claim like gluten-free, or shelf-life claim, like use by date, best before, something you're making and packaging and then selling to another
business to off-sell, then you'll need to justify that information by getting it tested. You can't
just make that claim without testing. So, you need to get your product tested by a
National Association of Testing Authorities accredited, or a NARTA accredited laboratory.
In summary, so 25th of February 2024, the statement of ingredients is required. The 25th
of February 2024, the summary statement is required, and required to meet these specific
conditions or layout. The 25th of February 2026, you can no longer sell old products that have the
incorrect label past that date. And always optional is a precautionary allergen label
that you can put on there or not. But best practice is that you do, we recommend you do.
You will see most products at supermarket now have that, even though they don't have to,
it's just a good way to protect your customers, and your business and livelihoods. Again,
any questions about that, pop it in the Q&A. We've already discussed, I mean, if you're wanting
to comply, the best way is to make sure that everyone is responsible for ensuring food is safe,
which you will get through the training. Ensure all staff are trained in food safety requirements.
Again, you'll get that through the training, which is now going to be mandatory for everyone.
Create a food safety program. So, it’s going to be specific if you use FoodSmart to your
food safety practices. Again, you probably don’t need to in most circumstances have one,
but it is still good to have one. Ensure your food safety supervisor is able
to effectively supervise food safety activities. And they have the authority to direct staff to
do the right thing. And they’re certificates again will expire every five years. And also,
make sure you renew and pay your Food Act registration by 31st of December. They are due, if
you haven't received your renewal, please let us know, because you know it is due soon, and there's
penalties for not paying in time, like driving a car unregistered, we don't want that happening.
So, regularly review food safety practices with your staff, and keep up-to-date records of training, and utilise the tools that we've already discussed, and that we'll be providing
to monitor practices, hygiene, cleaning of equipment within your business. So,
all those documents we’ve gone through, the management tools to help you, we'll send you all of those templates, and you can customise them however you want. They'll just be Word documents.
So, if we have any questions, I'll hand over to Lorenzo in case you have any questions
that he needs to answer verbally, or that I need to answer from the Q&A.
Yeah, there was one question that was put into the chat, I thought would be a bit easier to verbally
communicate than it would be to type. But someone has asked, what are the requirements if you buy-in sushi, and just put it in individual bags for service? The requirements in regards to that, and
correct me if I'm wrong please, Will. If you are storing it below 5 degrees, then there would be no
requirement for records. But if you're storing it in between the range of 5 to 15 degrees, then you
would be required to conduct some sort of storage records, which can be obtained via FoodSmart.
Yes, that's basically correct. So, if you're just buying sushi, the records for sushi are to do with
the preparation of sushi. So, if you're carrying it, if you're just buying it. And I don't know
where you're from, maybe it's a school canteen that seems to be a very school canteen thing to do. If that's the case, you’re usually just buying it, and you're sending it straight out
to the rooms, it's not required to do any records. The only records for sushi are if you're preparing
sushi, or you're displaying sushi between 5 and 15 degrees for extended periods of time. If you're
not doing either of those, you won't be required to do any extra records, or have a program even.
Further questions? There's no more? Doesn't appear to be, no.
No? Okay. Now, if there's any more, of course we're happy to take them after the session, via
email or however you want. We do have a feedback form that Lorenzo is going to post to the Q&A now.
Please give us your feedback and suggestions for how we can improve. We haven't done one of these
for a very long time, apart from this morning. It's been a couple of years, we're a bit rusty.
So, your help and feedback is always appreciated. Thank you very much for all attending. We are
always here to help you with any questions you have. Feel free to discuss with your EHO,
or get in touch with me or anyone here. And we will email out all of the slides. The
recording is being saved, and we're looking with our communications team to have it put
on our website as well, so that your staff or whoever can look at it at a later date.
So, thank you all again. I hope you have a great evening.