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Food Focus February 2009

How we do food safety

Three new resources have recently been published explaining how NZFSA manages food safety and how consumers can better manage food safety in the home

An independent international review completed early last year of NZFSA’s approach to ensuring food safety for consumers stated that “A policy of openness and transparency is essential for NZFSA in building and maintaining public trust” and that “NZFSA should continue to develop its policy of openness and transparency by providing more information to relevant consumer and other stakeholder groups”.

These latest publications from NZFSA are designed to provide consumers with more information about how NZFSA goes about protecting our food and how we as consumers can take practical steps to keep our own food safe.

Food safety in the home

This A5 booklet is one in a suite of publications aimed at consumers. This latest offering explains in more detail the golden rule of food safety – the 4Cs (Clean, Cook, Cover, Chill) – and it gives other food safety tips. Good hand washing practices are shown plus how to stack your fridge properly. It includes information from NZFSA’s ‘My cool lunch box’ brochure and a table of the most common pathogens that cause foodborne illness. This booklet would be useful for schools to hand out to pupils who can take the food safety message home to parents. New Zealand has an estimated 200,000 cases of foodborne illness every year, with 40% occurring in the home. Following the simple tips in this booklet could help reduce that number significantly.

Making sure New Zealand’s food is safe

At long last we have a guide to the legislation that NZFSA administers. This 32-page A4 colour booklet covers the main food-related Acts and NZFSA activities that support the legislation, such as labelling, recalls and monitoring programmes. This booklet will be useful for anyone who wants to understand the regulatory scope of food safety in New Zealand and should be a useful educational and information resource for schools, Territorial Authorities and food-related industries and trade organisations.

The chemical residue and contaminant status of New Zealand foods

A companion to the booklet above (and the same size), this new resource explains in comprehensive detail the chemical monitoring programmes NZFSA has developed to keep our food free from any harmful chemical residues and contaminants. It also explains the regulatory process as it relates to these programmes. NZFSA publishes the results of its various monitoring programmes each year and intends to compile these as an appendix to this publication. This booklet will be useful for anyone who needs to have a risk management programme, particularly if they are involved in the meat and dairy sectors.

These resources are available at no charge – call the consumer helpline on 0800 693 721 (0800 NZFSA1) or email info@nzfsa.govt.nz to order them.

They will soon be available to download from NZFSA’s website.

Last updated 30 March 2009