Food Inspection Gone Wrong: Dealing with Breaches of the Food Act 2003
If you work in the food-service industry, such as being a restaurant owner or a butcher, you must ensure that your workplace and food meet expected standards of quality. Laws applying to people who prepare and sell food are found in the Food Act 2003 (NSW).
Under this Act, it can be illegal to (for example) have an unclean restaurant, to use the wrong labels to describe food products, or to add preservatives to certain types of foods. In serious cases, companies offering food-services and even their directors can be prosecuted in court and if convicted can face heavy fines or even gaol-time.
In addition, the NSW Food Authority publishes online a ‘Name and Shame’ register with details of the company, directors, offences and penalty amounts available for the public to access. These details will remain on this list for 2 years after the appeal period has expired. If there are any errors on the list you can request for it to be corrected.
More frequently, food-service businesses can also be issued penalty notices or given instructions to fix issues with their workplace identified in inspections. Penalty notices are also advertised on the Name and Sham list online.
When deciding what sentence to give to offending companies and people, courts will look to see if there is evidence that an individual, or a company through its employees, has demonstrated remorse for its actions and has demonstrated that it is unlikely to re-offend in the future.
In addition, depending on the circumstances of the case and if a company or person is facing multiple charges under the Food Act, as lawyers we negotiate with the prosecution to withdraw some offences or place some offences on what is referred to as a ‘Form 1’. Under this approach, some of the charges against the food-service business may be withdrawn, so that they face less charges overall and also substantially fewer financial penalties. This is also important as less offences appear on the Name and Shame register.
After unsuccessful inspections, our specialized food safety lawyers can advise you on what changes need to be me to satisfy inspectors or otherwise minimize the impact of a prosecution. In the past, courts have accepted evidence of a business passing inspections after the date it was charged with offences, hiring dedicated safety staff, introducing food safety induction training, visual reminders to staff about food safety etc as illustrating remorse and an unlikeliness that it will re-offend in the future.
In our most recent case as at the date of this article, Hunter Shafiz Lawyers assisted a client in reducing their total charges under the Food Act from 16 to 8 charges. Moreover, our submissions to the court saw our client receive fines that were lower than the average fines imposed by the court. By working with our client early in the picture after the unsuccessful food safety inspection, our client followed our strategic advice not only to ensure that they pass future inspections, but also that their actions after the inspection were viewed favorably by the prosecution and court to significantly minimize the negative impact on our client.
We note that the above information is general only and does not constitute legal advice. If you are a food-service business and you are looking for legal advice or assistance, please contact our office on (02) 9682 5433 or via email at info@huntershafiz.com.au.
