Update from Vincent Arbuckle, DDG, NZFS

Kia ora koutou,

Last month we shared details of the education campaign that New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) launched for food service businesses. The campaign encouraged food businesses to prioritise food safety within their business for the health of their customers, and to maintain their reputation. As a result of this campaign it has been great to see an increase in the number of visits to the Food Safety Toolkit webpage, downloads of issue 1 of the Buddy magazine and the Top 5 food safety factors poster.

NZFS have also been doing a lot of work to support food importers, with our first food importers dedicated newsletter being sent earlier this month. You can read the first edition of the new newsletter and subscribe to upcoming editions here.

Ngā mihi nui,

Vincent Arbuckle
Deputy Director-General, New Zealand Food Safety

Export exemptions from New Zealand’s composition and labelling requirements

Consultation on proposed options for export exemptions from New Zealand’s composition and/or labelling requirements under the Food Act 2014 has now closed. Submissions are now being analysed and options for proceeding with exemptions are being considered.  

We’d like to hear from evaluators and verifiers to understand current practices regarding export exemptions and to identify what guidance and training will be required to implement various options. We’re planning to hold an online discussion in September to capture feedback and will let you know the details shortly.

If you are evaluating and verifying exporters and are willing to be part of an informal online focus group over the next 3 or 4 months, please let us know by emailing verifieracademy@mpi.govt.nz

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) year-end 

A reminder that the CPD year for Food Act Verifiers concludes at close of business on 30 September. All your activities and records must be completed and uploaded into The Academy by that date. This includes your Peer Review.

If you are:

a)    Having difficulty finding a peer reviewer, please send an email to: ContinuingProfessionalDev@mpi.govt.nz by the 31 August. Tell us what the focus of your peer review will be. We will do our best to help you find an appropriate person. Please include your full contact details.

OR

b)    Interested in offering to be a peer reviewer, please send an email to ContinuingProfessionalDev@mpi.govt.nz and include information about your areas of expertise and your contact details. Please note that no fees can be charged for providing the service as a peer reviewer.

Food Safety Academy offline notification

The Academy will be offline on the 29 and 30 August 2024 to enable a software upgrade to be completed.

Food Service education campaign

As part of the food service education campaign, NZFS recently launched The Trust Test video, which is based on the insights that food safety matters more to customers than business owners may realise – the takeaway being that ‘Trust makes everything taste better’. In the video, NZFS invited a group of people to lunch, served them a free burger, and got them to take the Trust Test.

We encourage verifiers and registration authorities to promote this video to food service businesses. We have also partnered with Restaurant Association of New Zealand and Hospitality New Zealand to distribute the video through their channels.

Food Importers education campaign

NZFS has been working on an education project to better support approximately 3,875 registered food importers in New Zealand to meet their requirements when importing food. External research was conducted as part of the project, to better understand food importers’ knowledge of food safety importing requirements, and how we can communicate better with food importers. Key insights found that importers had positive feedback on NZFS’s input into New Zealand’s strong food safety record. However, many importers were unaware or uncertain of food safety importing requirements. Upcoming priority areas of work are now being identified, some of which are part of implementing activities under the Food Importer Levy that came into effect on 1 July 2024.

Some other key highlights of the project to date include:

• the publication of the first Food Importers News, which was published on 9 July to 682 subscribers. You can view the issue and subscribe to the newsletter on the MPI website;
• a refresh of two importing information brochures, one brochure outlines the required steps before you start importing food into New Zealand and the other outlines the rules for importing food. These resources are currently on the MPI website or can be downloaded on the True North Portal – Food Safety for Businesses; and
• updates to the MPI importing webpages to make it easier for importers to find information.

We encourage you to share the refreshed resources with food importers.

Food Act recognised agency and registration authority webinar

The next Food Act webinar for recognised agencies and registration authorities is confirmed for Wednesday 18 September 2024, 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM.  If you have an item you would like to discuss at the webinar, or have a specific item or topic that you would like more information to be presented on, please send your request to foodactinfo@mpi.govt.nz no later than midday on 21 August.  An update on the webinar programme will be sent out to you by 9 September.

Super Local Conference

New Zealand Food Safety’s Export Regulatory Advisory Service and Food Risk Management teams will be attending Local Government New Zealand’s Super Local Conference from 21 to 23 August in Wellington at the Tākina convention centre. If you’re attending, it would be great to see you, please drop by to have a chat. We will be located on level 2 in booth 44.

Cyber resilience for food businesses webinar

New Zealand Food Safety will deliver a webinar on cyber resilience for food businesses online at 12:00 PM on Wednesday 4 September 2024.

To register for this free webinar follow this Microsoft teams registration link. This link includes an opportunity for attendees to include questions they would like to be covered in the webinar.