Essay On Governance And Legal Requirements Of Fast Food Business.

Business license and requirements

Discuss about the Governance And Legal Requirements Of Fast Food Business.

It might seem exciting to start a food business, to pick out the location and designing the menu but to make the business legal there are certain requirements that needs to be kept in mind by the entrepreneurs. However, in Sydney there has been a high demand for healthy and high-quality food among the population. Fast food industry is the primary supplier of foods that are for immediate consumption. The products that this industry usually serves are burgers, pizza, chicken-based fast food, sandwiches, salads and juices, desserts and confectioneries (Lang & Heasman, 2015). The main activities of this industry are retailing of cooked chicken, pizza, hamburger, fish and chips, sandwich followed by serving juice bars, mobile food van, retailing sushi and ice-cream and lastly, takeaway services. This essay will deal with the chosen topic Governance and legal requirements of fast food business.

The initial step that is to taken for is proper business license from the local council. As soon as the location of the fast food center is decided, the next step would be to get the license for the council of that particular area. Different rules and regulations are there for different locations and so the requirements for the licensing also vary. Therefore, license is needed if the business is about serving food to the customers and so proper authority needs to be notified. Each state and its territories in Australia have separate categorizations for food businesses (Scully et al.,2012). The local governing body needs to be updated with the classification information. However, for the licensing certain important information must be provided about the type of food, targeted customers, packaging and most importantly, the nominated food safety supervisor. In many states in Australia, it is compulsory to have a Food Safety supervisor that is appointed on staff. This particular supervisor must have appropriate training and certificates, which are to be registered before they can take up the work as a supervisor (Taylor et al., 2012). However, there are certain laws that must be compiled with before the fast food business is starting. The Food Standards Code is obtainable through the Food Safety Authority Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) that is easily available on their website.

Food safety standards places an compulsion on Australian fast food business to manufacture food that is safe as well as suitable for the customers to eat. Fast food business is involving food and is related to handling the sale in Australia and so safety standards are given highest priority. This standard also contains health and hygiene commitments for the food handlers, which aims to decrease the occurrence of food-borne illnesses. The Health protection service runs the food safety in Australian Capital Territory ACT government. The Health Protection Service controls food businesses, generate food regulations and policies and dispenses information that are related to food businesses and the community. However, the public health officer helps with the regulations, safety and hygiene requirements for food business along with any kind of food related complaints or concerns (Gostin,Wiley & Frieden, 2015).

Food safety standards

There are certain legal obligations that food business operators must be aware of when dealing with food. There are three important laws related to food in ACT government and they are as follows:-

• Food Act 2001- According to this regulation among its various functions, this Act contributes major definitions to food, its sell and so on. Then, it summarizes inspection and takeover powers of the sanctioned officers, allows the supplying of advancing notices and orders of prohibitions and describes faults related to food like selling unsafe foods (Reynolds et al., 2015).
• Food regulation 2002- Under the Food Act 2001 this regulation is made. Its main and important function is to embrace the Australia New Zealand food standards code for utilization in the ACT. The regulation also frames the details of the essentials for definite businesses to have a supervisor of food and safety and a food safety program and attributes requires for the business to exhibit kilojoules of quality food items at the point of scale (Jones, 2014).
• Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code- This code incorporates the general standard of the food like the standards of the food additives and the requirements of the labeling, then the compositional necessities, standard related to food and safety and the standards of primary and processing. This code is further divided into four chapters that are chapter 1 to chapter 4. Chapter 1 is the General Food Standards that involve necessaries that are applied to maximum foods like labeling then the substances, which are to be added in the food. Then chapter 2 which is the Food Product Standards that involves the compositional necessaries for certain foods like meat, egg, fish or alcohol. Chapter 3 is the Food Safety Standards that involves a scale of food safety necessities for instance storing the food in at right temperature, wishing hands while serving or preparing the food and maintaining clean equipments and premises. Lastly, Chapter 4 that is Primary Production Standards which involves the primary production and operating standards for food like the seafood, poultry meat, few cheese items, wine and products of dairy (Watson et al., 2014).

The Food Act 2001 does not cover community organizations and so it will be regulated by Public health Act 1997. Therefore, under this Act the officers of public health are allowed to confiscate the foods that are unsafe so that public health risks could be prevented. They will also issue an attenuation notice stating organizations to stop selling food that are unsafe.

The food safety standards defined by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) is applicable to each business including any sort of handling of food that is for sale in Australia (Richards et al., 2013). There are exceptions that do not include them under this and they are those businesses who are involved solely in primary production and does not undertake their products or directly sell their products to the public. However, the Public Health officers from the Health protection service perform routine inspection of food business and inspections that are based on complaints. Public health Officers also comes for an inspection without any prior notice. The common issues that are required to keep in mind when setting up a fast food business as that can be breach the food safety laws and they are providing hand-washing space, the premises of the food business must be kept clean so that any kind of risk of the food to become unsafe and contaminated is reduced. To maintain proper controlling of the temperatures where the food is stored and lastly, pest control which is the most important one (Yuen, 2012).

The Food regulation 2015 is also there that supports the food authority’s food regulatory works whose target is to reduce the occurrence of foodborne diseases that are linked to specific food sectors in New South Wales (NSW) government (Lawrence, Richards & Lyons, 2013). For the food industry, it is very important to set minimum of food safety for those items that are identified with higher risk factors like meat, dairy, seafood, shellfish, plant products and eggs. However, under every scheme there are categories of licenses that state the type of activities that each of the businesses are licensed to perform. In addition to this, there are few more laws that must be familiar with the fast food industry and they are Queensland food safety legislation, which involves the Food Act 2006, the Food Regulation 2006, the Food Production (safety) Act 2000 and the Food Production (safety) Regulation 2014 (Lockie, Travero & Tennent, 2015). Then they include the local government’s food safety regulations that involve the training requirements as well as the systems of ratings followed by liquor and wine laws that are applicable to those businesses where they also servers alcoholic beverages. Good food safety is the basis for fast food business in Sydney and so state government along with the businesses operates a number of schemes that actually helps improving the standard of hygiene for the food management (O'Kane, 2012).

Legal obligations related to food

To conclude this essay it can be said that Australian government actually gives special attention to the safety and hygiene of the foods that are served to the customers. Thus, every fast food business must get its license first and then comes the other requirements. There are laws and acts that actually protect the standard of the food delivered to the customers. There are supervisors appointed to check the food and its quality and does food safety supervisors plays an essential part. However, the food safety standards place a compulsion on Australian fast food business to manufacture food that is safe and suitable for the customers.

References

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Jones, J. M. (2014). CODEX-aligned dietary fiber definitions help to bridge the ‘fiber gap’. Nutrition journal, 13(1), 34.

Lang, T., & Heasman, M. (2015). Food wars: The global battle for mouths, minds and markets. Routledge.

Lawrence, G., Richards, C., & Lyons, K. (2013). Food security in Australia in an era of neoliberalism, productivism and climate change. Journal of Rural Studies, 29, 30-39.

Lockie, S., Travero, J., & Tennent, R. (2015). Private food standards, regulatory gaps and plantation agriculture: social and environmental (ir) responsibility in the Philippine export banana industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 107, 122-129.

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