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17 October 2016

WHAT'S NEW?

New food safety posters

We've created posters to highlight the top 5 food safety factors for businesses who are transitioning in the first year. They illustrate the most important food safety issues that people need to think about in different types of businesses - and why they are important.

It would be great if you could pass them onto relevant businesses. If you think it would be useful, we can get some printed for you to distribute. Let us know if printed copies would be useful, and how many you would need.

As always, please also give us your feedback!

See top 5 posters

Testing the template food control plan

Thanks to everyone who attended our workshop in Wellington the week before last to help us test new designs for the template food control plan. Over 150 businesses came to help us test the new designs across two days, and feedback for the initial changes was positive. People especially like the idea for an online 'digitool' to help them access the parts of the plan that apply to them.

For those who didn't attend, read a bit more about the workshop and see a few pictures in this Facebook post.

National programme guidance

A draft of the long awaited national programme guidance is finally here! We're currently testing the National Programme 1 guide with businesses, councils and verifiers. If feedback is positive, guidance for the other national programmes will follow the same format.

A link to the draft is below. Please take a look and give us your feedback. If you would like to test it with businesses, you are more than welcome to do that too.

Download the guidance

FOCUS POINTS

Join the discussion!

We've created an online discussion forum for Councils, Verifiers, MPI and others involved in regulating the Food Act. As we transition to the new law, we are all learning. We hope this forum can be a place to help figure out emerging issues together, ask questions and share ideas.

We've created the forum as a Linked In group. It is a simple platform that allows you to post and respond to messages.

This is intended as a forum for discussion between all those involved in regulation. We recognise that MPI doesn't have all the answers, nor are we always best placed to provide the solutions! Please feel free to share information, opinions, and answer each other's questions.

(The group will be subject to OIA - please take a second to read the rules before you start)

Join the group

COMING UP

Food Act workshops

More workshops are scheduled over the next few months, starting with Queenstown (31st October), Christchurch (1st November) and Waimakariri (2nd November).

We'll also be using these workshops to do some more testing of the food control plan templates and other materials.

Find all upcoming workshops here.

 

Consultation - regulations and notices

We'll be soon be consulting on changes to regulations and notices under the Food Act. As the new law is rolled out, we monitor and evaluate how it’s going and whether any issues are arising that might mean changes are needed. The proposals aim to make improvements where needed and make sure the new law works as intended.

We expect the consultation to be released on 25th October. We're creating a video to help promote the consultation with businesses, along with a web page and printed resources to explain the key changes.

More information will be coming your way soon.  

NEW RESOURCES

Māori food safety guidance

The Basic food safety guidance - Be Food Safe - is now available in Māori.

Download Te Whakamaru Kai

REGISTRATION

Limits for registering template a FCP

Some changes are happening behind the scenes in MAPS to limit which sectors and processes of interest you can select when registering a template food control plan. This will help clarify what businesses can do under a template.

The sectors and processes that will be available are listed below. If you think these limitations will create problems for you or your businesses, please let your local government liaison know.

Sectors:

  • Food retail sector where food businesses prepare or manufacture and sell food
  • Food service sector
  • Retailers that handle food
  • Bakeries that prepare or manufacture bread
  • Food service provided to pre-school children
  • Retailers of manufacturer-packaged chilled or frozen food
  • Retailers of hot beverages
  • Exempt (Schedule 3)

Processes of interest:

  • Acidification (under certain circumstances only)
  • Fermentation (under certain circumstances only)
  • Handling chilled RTE products
  • Holding at serving temperature
  • Processing chilled RTE products
  • Reheating
  • Slow or low temperature cooking

NEED MORE INFORMATION?

We want to make sure this newsletter gives you the information you need to do your job. If there's anything specific you'd like to see addressed in this newsletter, please let us know, and we'll try our best to include it! Contact Naomi - naomi.landau@mpi.govt.nz