Standard 3.2.2A: supervisor, training and records
Which food businesses Standard 3.2.2A applies to, category one vs category two, the food safety supervisor rules, training topics and the 3-month record rule.
Standard 3.2.2A (Food Safety Management Tools) is a national standard that adds to the existing Standard 3.2.2 requirements. It applies to Australian food service, catering and retail businesses that handle unpackaged, potentially hazardous, ready-to-eat food. Think cafés, restaurants, takeaways, caterers, pubs, delis, supermarkets and food vans. The food safety supervisor requirements started in December 2023.
Category one or category two?
- Category one: a caterer or food service business that processes unpackaged potentially hazardous food into food that is ready to eat and potentially hazardous. It must use all three tools below.
- Category two: a retailer of ready-to-eat potentially hazardous food that was handled unpackaged but not made or processed on site, other than slicing, weighing, repacking, reheating or hot-holding. It needs tools 1 and 2.
- If you do both kinds of activity, you're treated as category one.
- These categories are separate from the state and territory risk classes, so check with your council or state regulator how they line up.
Tool 1: Food handler training
Before they handle this kind of food, each food handler must have completed a food safety training course, or have the right skills and knowledge for the task. The training must cover safe food handling, food contamination, cleaning and sanitising, and personal hygiene.
Tool 2: Food safety supervisor (FSS)
- Appoint a certified FSS before doing these activities.
- The certificate must come from a registered training organisation or an organisation recognised by the food regulator, and it must have been obtained within the past 5 years.
- The FSS must be reasonably available to advise and supervise food handlers. In practice they work on site, or can easily be contacted, for example by phone. FSANZ says it isn't reasonable to appoint someone who doesn't handle food or is never on site.
Tool 3: Records (category one only)
Category one businesses must make records that show they're managing the key controls in Standard 3.2.2 for these activities. Typical examples are receiving temperatures, cold and hot holding, cooling, the 2-hour/4-hour rule, and cleaning and sanitising. Records must be kept for 3 months. The record rule doesn't apply if the business can show an authorised officer, to their reasonable satisfaction, that it complies some other way.
Sources
- FSANZ – Standard 3.2.2A Food safety management tools
- FSANZ – Food safety supervisor
- Federal Register of Legislation – Standard 3.2.2A (F2022L01589)
Related guides
General information only, summarised from the official sources above as at the review date. It isn't legal, tax, WHS or engineering advice. Rules change and your situation may differ, so check the source or ask a professional.