Food Businesses

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.

For more information, read our Food Business Construction Guide (PDF).

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:

Mobile Food Businesses on Council Property Policy (PDF).

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:

Temporary Food Business Application (pdf).

Fill out the form, and return to our Service Centre, or mail to gccmail@gcc.tas.gov.au.

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:

Environmental Health Refund Form (PDF)

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. 

The council will:

• Routinely inspect registered food businesses
• Provide food safety information
• Investigate reports of food-borne illnesses
• Conduct food sampling to test for contaminants

Temperature Control

Potentially hazardous food must be kept below 5°C or above 60°C at all times. The 2-hour/4-hour rule applies to hazardous food left at temperatures in between, and strict guidelines apply to cooling and reheating cooked food safely.

Cleaning Food Areas

All food contact surfaces must be routinely cleaned to remove dirt, grease, and food residue, then sanitised to destroy microorganisms.

Preventing Cross-Contamination

Raw ingredients must be stored separately from cooked and ready-to-eat food. Separate utensils and equipment must be used when handling allergenic foods, including fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, egg, milk, wheat, gluten, lupin, and soy.

Hand Washing

Hands must be washed with soap and warm running water before handling food and after touching raw food such as eggs and meat.

For more information, refer to the Tasmanian Department of Health Food Safety factsheet, or access the free Do Food Safely online training tool for staff.

There are certain requirements for labelling packaged food.

These rules help to ensure that people who buy the food understand what it contains.

View the Labelling Packaged Food Guide here.

A national Food Safety Standard 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:

https://dofoodsafely.health.vic.gov.au/index.php/en/

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:

Record keeping of key safe food handling practices