A tip for verifiers - please remember that if you've found a non-compliance in a verification, you need to give the business an unacceptable outcome.

A non-compliance should only be given where the safety and suitability of food is threatened. Guidance on outcomes has been circulated and is available on the website.

Happily, as previewed in the last Food News, when the new InformationLeader system is introduced, it will automatically prompt you on things like the correct outcome for non compliance. 

You'll shortly be getting an email from us about how the new processing requirements for national programme businesses might affect their registration. These changes came in on 1 July 2017. 

We set criteria for the following processes:

• Pasteurisation
• Acidification
• Fermentation
• Concentration
• Drying
• Thoroughly cooking.

Businesses that meet the criteria for these processes, can remain under a national programme. If they don't want to meet the criteria, they may need to move to a food control plan.

Additionally, businesses wanting to carry out cold plasma, electromagnetic, high pressure and hydrodynamic processing and ultrasonification, to make food safe, will need to operate under a Food Control Plan.

We will be contacting around 150 national programme businesses who've indicated they operate these processes. We've asked them to check they still fit under a national programme - verifiers may be contacted by these businesses seeking help.

As new processing businesses come up for registration under a national programme, please look carefully at their processes and make sure they are correctly placed in either a national programme, or under a food control plan.

Read the Food Notice: Requirements for Food Control Plans and National Programmes.

If you have any questions about classifying a business, or the new criteria, please contact foodactinfo@mpi.govt.nz

A little while ago you gave helpful feedback for what could be considered a special circumstance for extending the verification time for a new business.

Your feedback was that you didn't want strict rules around this, so we've largely left the discretion in your hands. The information is on our website.

While the system settles down we'd like to hear from you about the requests you've approved and why. This will help us see if decisions are consistent around the country or if we need to provide further guidance.

Please email information about your approved extensions to foodact.verification@mpi.govt.nz

By now those who ordered copies of our Chinese, Korean or Thai translated template food control plans will have received them.

If you are verifying a business operating from a translated template, it’s important to note that all the templates, regardless of language, have the same information on each page in the same format to make comparisons during verifications straightforward.

We are currently working on the translations for the template in Hindi, Khymer (Cambodian) and Vietnamese. We are checking these with relevant food businesses to make sure they are easily readable. We hope to fulfill these orders before too long.

You've told us that it would be useful for identification purposes to have the language of the template on the front, in English. We'll make sure this is done for the upcoming translations.

Sometimes a national programme businesses can't find a verification agency in their region, despite their best efforts. To help with this problem, we've agreed that the business can be registered with a temporary verification agency code.

If you're using MAPS to enter the registration data, choose 'To be confirmed' from the dropdown list for verification agencies. 

If you are doing a bulk data transfer, the guideline for Transferring Registration Data to MPI has been updated, and you can use the code TBC.

1. MPI has agreed to write a Practice Note to provide TAs with guidance on the contracting of TA functions to other organisations (when it can be done, and what the law prevents).

2. The development of a Verifier Academy is now underway.  This initiative was identified at last year’s verifier workshop in Wellington.  Verifiers will shortly be invited to get involved in refining an improved capability framework, and share their ideas for how they may like to use this to create a stronger network of verifier professionals. 

3. The MPI Food Compliance team gave us a presentation on FSO roles and responsibilities in investigating food borne illness and we discussed how this works now and options for the future.  They are working on a paper which will be circulated for views and comments in the next month or so.

4. You have told us that wholesaling is awkward under a template Food Control Plan.  FARF have discussed a practical approach that should help alleviate the majority of this challenge, by making it clear how many of the common business activities you are finding can be done within the Simply Safe & Suitable template.  MPI will create case studies to explain how this can work.

5. Last month FARF established a working group to develop National Outcomes, and good progress has been made since.  Outcomes are goals that will help guide TAs plans and activities, as well as inform how we should be measuring our performance.  The working group are proposing have further discussions over the next month after which they intend to invite operational staff, managers and leaders in TAs to help FARF refine these goals, discuss how they could be used, and to suggest the right mix of performance measures.

We'd had a great response to our last call to complete the e-learning modules for verifiers and evaluators. Thank you everyone who completed the training.

But there's still some who haven't been through yet. Now is the time to upskill on verifying and evaluating under the new Food Act.

There are six modules including three on legal knowledge, two on verification and one on evaluation skills.

Completing these modules will provide you with information on the key aspects of the Food Act 2014 and Regulations 2015 and how they should be applied in practice.

The kind of information you'll come away with includes

• What if a business refuses to address the CARs you’ve issued?
• What do verification outcomes look like for a national programme business?
• What does the graduated approach look like in practice?
• How do I verify when there’s no written procedures?

Access to the modules is easy. If you’ve completed some of the modules already, then you can use your existing log-in to access Tiritiri (MPI’s training site).

If you have not completed any of the modules, or you’ve lost your access to Tiritiri, please go to Register for online training, tick the Verifier and Evaluator Food Act 2014 Training Programme box and submit.