Skills and knowledge for food workers

Some food businesses in the Northern Territory (NT) must follow the Food Safety Standard 3.2.2A.

The standard requires certain food businesses to have:

  • a food safety supervisor
  • staff trained in food safety
  • evidence of compliance with parts of the existing food safety standard.

Who must meet the standard

This standard applies to food service and retail businesses that handle unpackaged, ready-to-eat, potentially hazardous food.

You must meet the standard if you fit into one of the following categories:

  • category 1: food service - such as restaurants, takeaways and caterers
  • category 2: retail - such as delis, supermarkets and butchers.

Read below for more information.

Requirements

Depending on your business type, you must meet some or all of the new requirements.

Food safety supervisor

You must have a food safety supervisor.

This is someone who has:

  • authority to supervise staff within the business
  • completed at least one of the following skill sets within the last 5 years:
    • SITSS00069 food safety supervision skill set
    • SIRRFSA001 handle food safely in a retail environment unit
    • HLTSS00061 - food safety supervision skill set - for community services and health industries.

To find out more, go to the Australian Government's training website.

For a list of registered training providers, read the NT registered training organisation list PDF (130.8 KB).

Food safety training

All staff who handle food must have adequate food safety skills and knowledge.

They must:

  • do a food safety training course or
  • show they understand food safety.

Your business can deliver the training or you can arrange for staff to do online training.

NT Health recommends the following courses:

Evidence of compliance

During a routine inspection, you must be able to show how you carry out safe food handling practices by:

  • demonstrating or
  • keeping a record of safety controls, activities and processes.

Access recordkeeping templates in appendix 8 of the Safe Food Australia guidebook on the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) website.

You are one of the following:

  • restaurants
  • takeaways
  • bakeries
  • mobile food traders
  • market stalls
  • caterers
  • cafes
  • hospitals
  • child care centres
  • aged care facilities.

You handle unpackaged high-risk food and serve it to customers (or provide to another business to serve), ready for consumption without any further processing needed by the customer (such as reheating).

Your requirements

You must:

  • have a food safety supervisor
  • ensure staff are trained in food safety
  • show evidence of compliance with parts of the food safety standard.
During inspections

You must be able to show environmental health officers that you comply in a number of areas including:

  • cooking, cooling and reheating processes
  • temperature control
  • cleaning and sanitising.

You are one of the following:

  • deli
  • supermarket
  • seafood retailer
  • butcher
  • service station
  • convenience store.

You handle unpacked high-risk food and sell it to customers.

The food is not made from raw ingredients, and minimal handling is carried out to provide it to the customer (such as slicing, weighing, repacking, reheating or hot-holding).

Your requirements

You must:

  • have a food safety supervisor
  • ensure staff are trained in food safety.

Contact

For more information, contact Environmental Health. Get their contact details on the NT Health website.

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