New South Wales Food Authority

NSW Food Authority
Logo of the New South Wales Food Authority
Agency overview
Formed	5 April, 2004
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction*	State of New South Wales, Australia
Legal jurisdiction	As per operations jurisdiction.
General nature	Law enforcement Civilian agency
Operational structure
Headquarters	Newington, NSW 33°50′01″S 151°03′18″E / 33.83363°S 151.055022°E / -33.83363; 151.055022
Agency executive	Alan Coutts, Chief Executive Officer
Units	List Compliance, Inspection and Enforcement Consumer Programs & Communications Finance, Licensing & Business Services Industry Liaison Science & Policy
Website
www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au
Footnotes
* Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

New South Wales Food Authority (NSW Food Authority) is an Australian government statutory authority, responsible for food safety and food labelling regulations in the state as well as consumer food safety promotion. It is part of the executive arm of the Government of New South Wales, within the portfolio of the Minister for Primary Industries, and is a partner agency in the NSW Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services.

The authority was established in April 2004 with the amalgamation of SafeFood Production NSW and the food inspection activities of the Department of Health (being the former Food Branch and the food inspection staff of the Area Health Services). SafeFood Production NSW was itself the product of a series of amalgamations of industry-specific organisations.

Remit

The authority enforces the Food Act 2003 (NSW) and associated regulations within New South Wales in respect of all food for sale. The act brings the bi-national Food Standards Code maintained by Food Standards Australia New Zealand into force within the state. The authority designs and monitors food safety schemes for industry sectors in the state, licenses food businesses under those schemes, receives notifications for other food businesses, investigates complaints for businesses it monitors, coordinates recalls of food products in the state, coordinates input to national food standards policy and implementation, and advises the Minister for Primary Industries on food standards.

Completing the end-to-end remit of the agency, the Food Act also gives the authority a legislative responsibility 'to provide advice, information, community education and assistance in relation to matters connected with food safety or other interests of consumers in food'.^[1]

Scope of activities

The authority is Australia’s first completely integrated or 'through-chain' state food regulation agency, responsible for food safety and food labelling across the food industry, from point of harvest or manufacture through processing, transport, storage and wholesale to point-of-sale and, arguably, point of consumption (see Remit, below). Both policy and enforcement activities are evidence-led.

Before the authority was established, responsibility for food regulation in NSW was divided across a number of state agencies, some with scope limited to specific food sectors such as meat, dairy or seafood or to vertical parts of the food chain such as retail outlets. Various degrees of segmentation remain in other Australian State and territory jurisdictions. Evolution in the food, transport and trade industries was creating greater complexity in market structures, business reach and government regulation. The establishment of the authority was designed to create a more streamlined, consistent and efficient approach to food regulation in NSW and a single point of contact for both the food industry and public.

Some overlap of government agency remits regulating the sale of food remain, however, with the NSW Office of Fair Trading (OFT) empowered to enforce the Trade Measurement Act 1989 (NSW) and Fair Trading Act 1987 (NSW) and, at the federal level, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission enforcing the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cwlth). Furthermore, local government is also empowered to enforce food standards under the Food Act, mostly at the level of retail food outlets. The authority works with local councils to minimise overlap and duplication at the retail level and enhance consistency of enforcement activities and skills across the state. In July 2008, amendments to the Food Act formalised and mandated the (previously optional) food safety enforcement functions of local government. The amendments enabled the authority to appoint, after consultation, each local council to one of three predefined categories setting out each's food safety enforcement powers and responsibilities.

Name and shame initiative

In July 2008 the NSW government passed laws amending existing provisions which allowed the authority to publish details of successful food business prosecutions on its website [1]. The new laws added, for the first time in Australia, provisions allowing for publication of details of penalty notices—akin to 'on-the-spot' fines—issued by enforcement staff for alleged breaches of food safety standards. Known colloquially as 'naming and shaming' food outlets, the initiative was a response to growing public demand for access to food business performance information, freedom of information advocates and the media.

A complimentary initiative termed 'Scores on Doors' is in pilot among some NSW local government areas and entails public display by participating retail food outlets of food safety inspection results, including those for high performing outlets as well as poorly performing ones.

See also

• Food safety
• Foodborne illness
• Food allergy
• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), risk management methodology
• Public Service Association of NSW, the union covering administrative and support staff employed in NSW Food Authority

References

1. ^ Food Act 2003 (NSW) s 108(2)(f)

External links

• NSW Food Authority website
• Name and shame lists, NSW
• Scores on Doors NSW (Australia) information for consumers and retail businesses
• Food Act 2003 (NSW) on www.legislation.nsw.gov.au
• Food Standards Code on FSANZ website