All food businesses wanting to sell food within the Glenorchy City Council municipality must first submit a new food business application and pay the applicable fee.
View the food business application here:
View the Fees and Charges schedule for this financial year here:
If you are taking over an existing food business, you still need to submit a new food business application. Food business registration certificates are non-transferable.
An Environmental Health Officer will need to approve your food premises before you can begin selling food. This is a requirement under the Food Act 2003. The Environmental Health Officer will also identify the risk category of the food you will be selling. This will determine how often the premises are inspected and the food business renewal fee.
If you are constructing a new food business or altering an existing one, you will need to check with Council’s Planning department as you may require a Planning Permit. You may also require Building and Plumbing permits.
If so, you will need to engage a building surveyor to assess your plans for compliance under the National Construction Code 2022 – Building Code of Australia, including, Schedule 9 Tasmania – TAS Part I4 Food Premises.
An Environmental Health Officer will need to check that your building plans comply with the food business requirements before Building and Plumbing Permits can be issued.
Is Planning Approval Required?
For further information about building or renovating fixed food premises, view Glenorchy City Council’s Food Business Construction Guide (pdf) here.
If you are thinking about buying a food business, we can provide pre-purchase inspections to check for any issues upon request.
A fee is charged for this service; however it could save you from having to spend money on alterations later.
You will need to submit a food business application to Council and pay the applicable fee if your food van is garaged or if your food stall equipment is stored within the Glenorchy City Council municipality.
The Environmental Health Officer will need to inspect your food van or market stall set-up before you begin selling food. View the Tasmanian guidelines for Mobile Food Businesses here:
https://www.health.tas.gov.au/publications/guidelines-mobile-food-businesses
You will need to contact Council’s Planning department if you are wanting to sell food from a mobile food business at a location within the municipality area outside of the locations identified in Council’s Mobile Food Businesses on Council Property Policy. The Mobile Food Businesses on Council Property Policy can be found here:
If you are wanting to sell food temporarily for a fundraising event or market stall, you can apply for a short-term food business registration and pay the applicable fee. Temporary registrations are not designed to be used for frequent events or for an ongoing business.
View the application for a temporary food business here:
If your food business no longer requires a registration certificate due to closure or change of use, please notify Council’s Environmental Health team of this change.
You may be eligible for a partial refund of your registration fee.
Please speak with your Environmental Health Officer and complete the refund form here:
It is very important that all food businesses sell food that is safe to eat.
Our Environmental Health team works to ensure that food businesses are complying with the food safety provisions in the FSANZ Food Standards Code.
This is a requirement under the Food Act 2003.
We:
- Routinely inspect registered food businesses
- Provide food safety information
- Investigate reports of food-borne illnesses
- Conduct food sampling to test for contaminants
Safe temperatures for cooking and storage of food
- Potentially hazardous food must be kept under temperature control below 5° Celsius or above 60° Celsius.
- The ‘2-hour/ 4-hour’ rule must be used for potentially hazardous food. View the rule here (pdf).
- Cooked, potentially hazardous food must be cooled and reheated safely. View the safety standards here (pdf).
Keeping food areas clean
- Food contact surfaces must be routinely cleaned to remove dirt, grease and food, and sanitised to destroy microorganisms. View the factsheet on cleaning and sanitising here (pdf).
Preventing cross-contamination
- Raw ingredients must be stored away from cooked and ready-to-eat food.
- Separate utensils and equipment must be used for storing, preparing and serving allergenic foods – food allergens include fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, egg, milk, wheat, gluten, lupin and soy.
Washing hands
- Hands must be washed with soap and warm running before handling food and after touching raw food such as eggs and meat.
For more information on food safety, view the factsheet from the Tasmanian Department of Health (pdf).
View the free, online food safety training tool for staff here.
There are certain requirements for labelling packaged food.
These rules help to ensure that people who buy the food understand what it contains.
A national Food Safety Standard now applies in Tasmania.
This Standard introduces new requirements for food service, catering, and retail business that handle unpackaged, read-to-eat, potentially hazardous foods. It introduces three ‘tools’ for certain food service, catering and retail businesses:
- food handler training requirements
- appoint a food safety supervisor
- record keeping of key safe food handling practices
Further information and resources are available on the Department of Health website or by calling 1800 671 738.
3.2.2A businesses must ensure that all people involved in the handling of ready-to-eat, potentially hazardous food complete a food safety training course or has the skills and knowledge of food safety and hygiene matters commensurate with the specific activity.
A good way of showing adequate skills and knowledge is completing a food safety training course such as DoFoodSafely:
This requirement is for a business that is a caterer or a food service business that processes unpackaged potentially hazardous food into a food that is potentially hazardous food; and ready-to-eat food.
Under Standard 3.2.2A food businesses must be able to show their food is safe.
This is to ensure businesses are actively monitoring and managing key food safety risks related to food temperature control, food processing, and cleaning and sanitising, which are critical for food safety.
The requirement can be met by maintaining records or demonstrating to authorised officers that the business is safely receiving, storing, processing, displaying and transporting potentially hazardous food, and cleaning and sanitising.
What needs to be shown:
Specific activities relating to the requirements of Food Safety Standard 3.2.2 must be monitored and/or recorded, including:
- temperature control during food receipt
- storage
- display
- transport
- pathogen reduction during food processing
- minimising time during food processing
- cooling food
- reheating food
- cleaning and sanitising.
These are known as ‘prescribed provisions’. Below are more details on the above requirements for potentially hazardous food, and suggested frequency of monitoring and records that should be kept for each activity: