Governance and Legal Requirements of a Fast Food Business in Australia

This report provides a detailed overview of the governance and legal requirements for establishing and operating a fast food business in Australia. It emphasizes the importance of obtaining proper business licenses from local councils and adhering to specific rules and regulations that vary by location. The report highlights the necessity of a Food Safety Supervisor with appropriate training and certifications. It covers key legislation, including the Food Standards Code, the Food Act 2001, and the Food Regulation 2002, and the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. The report also discusses the role of public health officers in ensuring food safety and hygiene, along with legal obligations and standards. It also touches on specific state regulations, such as those in NSW and Queensland, underscoring the importance of food safety schemes and the need for compliance with various food safety legislations, including training requirements, rating systems, and liquor laws if applicable.

Running head: GOVERNANCE AND LEGAL REQUIREMENTS
Governance and legal requirements of fast food business
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1GOVERNANCE AND LEGAL REQUIREMENTS
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

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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).
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

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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

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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

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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).
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.

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