Explain why customer should not be allowed to access food displays

Print

When you choose to display food at your business, you need to make sure that the food stays safe at all times. This includes food displayed for self-service, on a counter, or inside a refrigerator.

How you protect food will depend on the way you display it, and the type of food on display.

Make sure food is protected from contamination

Regularly check that all packaged food is safe to sell, for example food is within its use-by or best-before dates and the packaging has not been damaged.

Display raw food separated from ready-to-eat food.

Heat food  before you add it to a bain-marie or pie warmer.

Keep hot food is kept above 60˚C.

Keep cold food is kept at 5˚C or colder.

Do not top up dishes as they get low, this can transfer contaminants to the new food and may cause food poisoning.

Supervise unpackaged self-serve food and make sure each food has separate utensils.

NEVER re-serve food that has been served to another person.

Records

The following records can be used when you display and serve food:

• Temperature control log
• 2 hour / 4 hour record (DOCX)

More information

Contact your local council for more information about processing food safely in your food business.

Read more about:

Last updated: 9 June 2021

When displaying unpackaged ready-to-eat self-service food, a food business must:

• ensure that the food is supervised;
• provide separate serving utensils for each food; and
• provide protective barriers

to prevent the likelihood of contamination (see Standard 3.2.2 cl 8(2) of the Code).

These requirements apply to all ready-to-eat foods on display (e.g. self-service salad bars, bread, buffets and smorgasbords). However, these requirements do not apply to self-service nuts in the shell and whole, raw fruits and vegetables that are intended to be hulled, peeled or washed before consumption.

The food must be supervised so that if a customer has, or is likely to have, contaminated the food, the business can remove it from display. Adequate supervision may be achieved by requiring staff to monitor the display or by the use of surveillance cameras that continuously are monitored. Note that supervision is only required when customers are accessing food from the display.

The food business must provide separate serving utensils for each food on display, or other dispensing methods that minimise the likelihood of the food being contaminated.

Physical barriers between customers and the food discourage direct hand contact and ensure that contamination is minimised (e.g. from customers’ coughs and sneezes). Ideally, a protective barrier should be provided by the use of permanent display units. Permanent display units should be provided where food is being displayed regularly.

For temporary displays other mechanisms will need to be used to protect the displayed food from contamination. For example, if food is being displayed for self-service as part of an outdoor event, a permanent display unit may not be available. Instead, dishes with removable covers may be provided. These covers must remain available so that they can be placed back on the food when the customers have finished serving themselves.

Page 2

A food business must display potentially hazardous food under appropriate temperature control (i.e. at or below 5⁰C or at or above 60⁰C). If the food is intended to be frozen it must remain frozen when on display (see Standard 3.2.2 cl 8(5) of the Code).

If a food business displays food between 5oC and 60oC, the businesses must be able to demonstrate that this will not adversely affect its microbiological safety.

Potentially hazardous food can be safely displayed at temperatures between 5⁰C and 60⁰C provided that the time that the food is at these temperatures is minimised. The use of time as a control measure for the growth of pathogens in potentially hazardous food is outlined in Appendix A.

With respect to frozen food, businesses should follow the manufacturer’s storage instructions to maintain product quality and shelf life.

Page 3

Means an activity conducted to prepare food for sale including chopping, cooking, drying, fermenting, heating, pasteurising, thawing and washing, or a combination of these activities.

Page 4

Means all equipment used in handling food or storing food as well as equipment used to clean food premises or equipment, for example refrigerators, cool rooms, bain-marie units, ovens, food processors, dishwashers, brooms, mops, buckets etc.

Page 5

When transporting food a food business must take all practical measures to ensure food is protected from the likelihood of contamination [see Standard 3.2.2 cl 10(a)].

While food would normally be packaged during transportation, it is important that steps are taken to ensure packaging is not damaged or contaminated in a way that may affect the safety or suitability of the food. For example, food should not be transported with poisonous chemicals unless chemicals are packaged separately from food items.

Unpackaged food is vulnerable to contamination during transportation. If different types of unpackaged foods are being transported at the same time, businesses must ensure that there is no cross contamination. For example, ready-to-eat foods must be protected from contamination from raw meats.

Note that cl 24(1)(a) of Standard 3.2.2 prohibits the transport of live animals, other than seafood, fish or shellfish, in the part of the vehicle that is also carrying food.

Page 6

To apply heat or chemicals, heat and chemicals, or other processes, to a surface so that the number of micro-organisms on the surface is reduced to a level that:

• does not compromise the safety of food with which it may come into contact; and
• does not permit the transmission of infectious disease.

Page 7

All potentially hazardous food must be kept under appropriate temperature control during transportation. Additionally, all potentially hazardous food that is intended to be transported frozen must remain frozen during transportation [see Standard 3.2.2 cl 10(b), (c)].

Potentially hazardous food must be maintained at 5°C or below or 60°C or above. If the food business is transporting the food at a temperature between 5oC and 60oC, they must be able to demonstrate that this will not adversely affect its microbiological safety.

As a general rule, food businesses should not transport potentially hazardous food without adequate temperature control; if transport times will exceed 2 hours (see Appendix A for more detail).

If a food business decides to use time as a control rather than temperature, the business must monitor and record the amount of time that the potentially hazardous food is between the temperatures of 5°C and 60°C during transport.

The food business transporting frozen potentially hazardous food must keep this food frozen unless otherwise requested by the food business that is to receive this food. This request should be in writing to avoid any disputes.

Storage instructions may be provided by the manufacturer. These storage conditions need to be followed during transportation to ensure that food keeps for its intended shelf life as stated by the ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ date.

Page 8

Means an activity conducted to prepare food for sale including chopping, cooking, drying, fermenting, heating, pasteurising, thawing and washing, or a combination of these activities.

Page 9

A food business engaged in the wholesale supply, manufacture or importation of food must:

• have in place a system to ensure the recall of unsafe food;
• set out this system in a written document and provide this document to an authorised officer upon request; and
• comply with this system when recalling unsafe food [see Standard 3.2.2 cl 12 of the Code].

This requirement applies to wholesale suppliers, manufacturers and importers. The requirement has been limited to these sectors of the food industry because recalls can only be effective if the product is stored by the customer (either a retailer or a consumer), i.e. it is not for immediate consumption. Food intended for immediate consumption is likely to have been consumed before it can be recalled.

A retail food business (restaurant, takeaway or supermarket) is not required to have a recall system unless it is also a food manufacturer, importer or wholesaler. For example, a café that makes its own jam for use on the premises is not required to have a recall system for the jam. However, if the café decides to sell this jam to the public, it will need a recall system.

The key features of a recall system are:

• a list of authorities that should be notified of the recall;
• records of where the product has been distributed;
• advice to be given to customers to ensure that food is returned;
• arrangements for retrieving food that is returned by customers to supermarkets or other outlets: and
• arrangements for assessing how much food has been returned and how much remains in the market place.