Glossary of food safety terms
The words used in the WA food safety rules and at an inspection. Each definition says whether the term comes from law, from guidance or from Hospitality Shield.
A
- Alternative method
- A way of keeping food safe other than the 5°C and 60°C limits. Clause 25 of Standard 3.2.2 allows one where the business relies on a food safety program, a process backed by documented scientific evidence, or written industry guidelines. The 2 hour and 4 hour rule is used this way.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 25
- Guide: Keeping potentially hazardous food at safe temperatures
C
- Category one business
- A caterer or food service business that processes unpackaged potentially hazardous food into food that is both potentially hazardous and ready to eat. It needs a food safety supervisor, trained food handlers and the evidence tool. Most restaurants, cafés, takeaways and caterers are category one.
- Standard 3.2.2A, clause 6
- Guide: Category one or category two?
- Category two business
- A retailer of potentially hazardous, ready to eat food that it received or unpacked but did not make, handling it at most by slicing, weighing, repacking, reheating or hot holding. It needs a food safety supervisor and trained food handlers, but not the evidence tool.
- Standard 3.2.2A, clause 7
- Guide: Category one or category two?
- Cleaning
- Removing food waste, dirt, grease and other visible matter. Standard 3.2.2 requires premises, fixtures, fittings and equipment to be kept clean. Cleaning comes before sanitising, because sanitiser does not work through grease.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 19
- Guide: Cleaning and sanitising
- Cooling
- Bringing cooked potentially hazardous food down to 5°C in two stages: from 60°C to 21°C within two hours, then from 21°C to 5°C within a further four hours. Each stage stands alone.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 7(3)
- Guide: Cooling and reheating cooked food
- Corrective action
- What a business does when something goes wrong: food thrown out, equipment repaired, a process changed. Guidance recommends recording it beside the record that showed the problem, so the record shows the problem was dealt with. No rule requires a separate corrective action record.
- Guidance, not law: Food safety guidance on record keeping
D
- Danger zone
- The range between 5°C and 60°C, where bacteria in potentially hazardous food grow fastest. The two limits are law. Danger zone itself is a common name rather than a legal term.
- Guidance, not law: Common name for the range outside temperature control in Standard 3.2.2
- Guide: Keeping potentially hazardous food at safe temperatures
- Declared allergens
- The foods whose presence must be shown with unlabelled food or given to a customer on request, using the names in Column 4 of Schedule 9: for example gluten for barley, oats and rye, milk rather than dairy, and each tree nut by name. There is no requirement to keep an allergen record.
- Standard 1.2.1, clause 9(6); Standard 1.2.3, clause 5; Schedule 9
- Guide: Allergen information you must give customers
- Due diligence defence
- A defence to some food offences in WA, where the business proves it took all reasonable precautions. The onus is on the business, which is why records made at the time, and supplier information, are worth keeping even where no rule asks for them.
- Food Act 2008 (WA), section 27
- Guide: Allergen information you must give customers
E
- Environmental health officer
- An officer of a local government who inspects food businesses, looks into complaints and enforces food law. In WA they act as authorised officers under the Food Act 2008 (WA). A Hospitality Compliance Support Officer is not one.
- Food Act 2008 (WA)
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
- Evidence tool
- The third food safety management tool. A category one business either makes and keeps records for the prescribed provisions it carries out, or demonstrates to an authorised officer in another way that it meets them. Records are kept for at least three months. Category two businesses do not need it.
- Standard 3.2.2A, clause 12
- Guide: Standard 3.2.2A explained for WA venues
F
- Food Act 2008 (WA)
- The Western Australian Act that makes failing to comply with the Food Standards Code an offence (section 22(1)) and sets up registration, improvement notices and prohibition orders. Together with the Food Regulations 2009 (WA), it applies the Code in WA as in force from time to time.
- Food Act 2008 (WA), sections 22 and 144
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
- Food business registration
- A WA food business's registration with its local government. It does not expire and runs until cancelled, though the annual fee recurs. A change of activity is notified within 7 days.
- Food Act 2008 (WA), sections 111 and 113
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
- Food for disposal
- Food that is to be destroyed, returned to the supplier, reprocessed or checked before it can be used, including recalled food. It must be kept separate and identified until one of those things happens. This is how a restaurant handles a recall.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 11
- Food handler
- A person who handles food, or surfaces that food touches, in a food business. Before first carrying out a prescribed activity, each food handler needs a food safety course or skills and knowledge that match the work. No certificate is required.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 1; Standard 3.2.2A, clause 10
- Guide: Food handler training and what it must cover
- Food recall system
- A written system for recalling unsafe food. It is required only of businesses engaged in wholesale supply, manufacture or import. A restaurant or café does not need one; it handles recalled food as food for disposal.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 12
- Food Regulations 2009 (WA)
- The regulations under the Food Act 2008 (WA). Regulation 7 adopts the Food Standards Code, and regulations 14 and 15 set WA's duty to notify certain pathogens. They contain no food safety program provisions.
- Food Regulations 2009 (WA)
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
- Food safety program
- A written program that identifies the hazards in all of a business's food handling and how each is controlled, reviewed every year and audited. Standard 3.3.1 requires one of listed facilities that serve potentially hazardous food to six or more vulnerable persons at any given time. An ordinary WA café, restaurant, pub or caterer needs none.
- Standard 3.2.1; Standard 3.3.1
- Guide: Who needs a written food safety program in WA
- Food safety supervisor
- A person the business appoints before it carries out a prescribed activity, reasonably available to advise and supervise food handlers. Their certificate must have been issued within the previous five years. In WA, the units accepted are set by WA Health policy, led by SITSS00069.
- Standard 3.2.2A, clause 11
- Guide: The food safety supervisor in WA
- Food Standards Code
- The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, the national set of food standards. In WA it is adopted as in force from time to time, so a change to the Code applies here without any state amendment.
- Food Act 2008 (WA), section 144(7); Food Regulations 2009 (WA), regulation 7
- Guide: Standard 3.2.2A explained for WA venues
- Frozen
- Food meant to be stored frozen must remain frozen, and the Code says frozen does not include partly thawed. The Code sets no freezer temperature.
- Standard 3.2.2, clauses 1 and 6(2)(b)
- Guide: Keeping potentially hazardous food at safe temperatures
- FSANZ
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand, the agency responsible for the Food Standards Code. Its guide Safe Food Australia explains the food safety standards clause by clause, and is guidance rather than law.
- Guidance, not law: Food Standards Australia New Zealand
H
- Hospitality Compliance Support Officer
- The officer who reviews a venue's records on the Hospitality Shield Guardian plan. They are not an authorised officer, cannot inspect for a council, issue notices or certify a venue, and their review is not a council inspection.
- Hospitality Shield term
I
- Improvement notice
- A notice served on the proprietor requiring a problem to be fixed. It runs for 24 hours unless the notice gives longer, and an extension has to be granted before the period ends.
- Food Act 2008 (WA), sections 62 and 63(1)
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
- Infringement notice
- A fixed penalty an officer can issue for some offences as an alternative to prosecution. Paying it within the time allowed finalises the matter without a conviction. The amounts are set by regulation.
- Food Act 2008 (WA); Food Regulations 2009 (WA)
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
N
- Notifiable pathogens
- Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella and Shigella species, and verotoxigenic E. coli. In WA a proprietor told of their isolation, or suspected isolation, from food, a person, the premises, a vehicle or anything else associated with the food business must give oral notice to the CEO of the Department of Health immediately, then written notice in the approved form within 24 hours of the oral notice. This is WA law only.
- Food Regulations 2009 (WA), regulations 14 and 15
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
P
- Potentially hazardous food
- Food that has to be kept at certain temperatures to stop harmful bacteria growing or forming toxins. Cooked meat, dairy, cooked rice and pasta, prepared salads and cut fruit are common examples.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 1
- Guide: Keeping potentially hazardous food at safe temperatures
- Prescribed activity
- The handling of unpackaged, potentially hazardous, ready to eat food that brings a business within Standard 3.2.2A: making or processing it for a category one business, selling it for a category two business. The supervisor and training duties apply before the first one.
- Standard 3.2.2A
- Guide: Standard 3.2.2A explained for WA venues
- Prescribed provisions
- The nine activities the evidence tool covers: receipt, storage, pathogen reduction, minimising time out of temperature control, cooling, reheating, display, transport, and cleaning and sanitising. Each applies only if the business carries out the activity.
- Standard 3.2.2A, clause 12(4)
- Guide: Standard 3.2.2A explained for WA venues
- Prohibition order
- An order stopping some or all of a food business. The proprietor may ask for a reinspection at any time, and if none happens within 48 hours through no fault of theirs, clearance is taken to have been given.
- Food Act 2008 (WA), sections 65 and 67(3)
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
R
- Ready to eat food
- Food ordinarily eaten in the state in which it is sold, without further cooking. Standard 3.2.2A is about ready to eat food that is also potentially hazardous and unpackaged.
- Standard 3.2.2A
- Guide: Category one or category two?
- Reheating
- Heating cooked and cooled potentially hazardous food so it can be held hot. The Code requires a process that rapidly heats it to 60°C or above. Rapidly has no number in the Code; two hours is the WA regulator's reading.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 7(4)
- Guide: Cooling and reheating cooked food
- Risk classification
- WA's Food Business Risk Classification System, which scores a business and sets how often it is assessed: starting at 18 months for low risk, 12 for medium and 6 for high. It is guidance, not law, though councils also use it to set fees.
- Guidance, not law: WA Food Business Risk Classification System
- Guide: When an environmental health officer inspects
S
- Sanitising
- Reducing microorganisms on a clean surface to a safe level with heat, a chemical or both. Utensils must be clean and sanitary before each use, and food contact surfaces whenever food that will touch them is likely to be contaminated. The Code sets no sanitiser strength or contact time.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 20
- Guide: Cleaning and sanitising
- Standard 3.2.2
- Food Safety Practices and General Requirements, the operating rules for every food business: receiving, storing, preparing, displaying and transporting food, cleaning, health and hygiene, and thermometers.
- Food Standards Code, Standard 3.2.2
- Guide: Keeping potentially hazardous food at safe temperatures
- Standard 3.2.2A
- Food Safety Management Tools, in force across Australia since 8 December 2023. It adds a food safety supervisor, food handler training and, for category one businesses, the evidence tool.
- Food Standards Code, Standard 3.2.2A
- Guide: Standard 3.2.2A explained for WA venues
- Standard 3.3.1
- Food Safety Programs for Service to Vulnerable Persons. It applies to listed facilities, such as hospitals, aged care and childcare centres, serving potentially hazardous food to six or more vulnerable persons at any given time, and requires a written, audited food safety program.
- Food Standards Code, Standard 3.3.1
- Guide: Who needs a written food safety program in WA
T
- Temperature control
- Keeping potentially hazardous food at 5°C or below, or at 60°C or above. A business may use an alternative method under clause 25 if it can show the food stays safe.
- Standard 3.2.2
- Guide: Keeping potentially hazardous food at safe temperatures
- Thermometer
- Premises handling potentially hazardous food must have a readily accessible temperature measuring device accurate to ±1°C. No rule sets how often it is checked.
- Standard 3.2.2, clause 22
- Guide: Keeping potentially hazardous food at safe temperatures
- 2 hour and 4 hour rule
- FSANZ guidance on how long potentially hazardous food can spend between 5°C and 60°C, counted across its whole life. It is not in the Code and works as an alternative method under clause 25 of Standard 3.2.2.
- Guidance, not law: FSANZ, Safe Food Australia
- Guide: Keeping potentially hazardous food at safe temperatures
V
- Vulnerable persons
- People served by the facilities listed in Standard 3.3.1, such as hospital patients, aged care residents and children in childcare. The standard applies from six or more at any given time.
- Standard 3.3.1
- Guide: Who needs a written food safety program in WA
General information about the rules in Western Australia. It is not legal advice. Your local government's environmental health officer decides how the rules apply to your premises.