Food Safety Risk Assessments (FSRA)

Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) manage food safety in Maroondah in accordance with the Food Act 1984 and Australia and New Zealand Food Standards Code.

Council assists businesses with food safety through conducting Food Safety Risk Assessments (FSRA). The FSRA program assists local food businesses to improve on food handling practices and reduce the incidence of food-borne illness.

Food Safety Risk Assessments support food businesses by:

Incorporating a risk management approach (assessing the likelihood and consequence of food becoming unsafe/unsuitable.)
Assessing the adequacy of current food safety controls businesses have in place.
Identifying any uncontrolled food safety risks.
Assisting businesses to put in place adequate controls to reduce the risk and ranks these actions in order of importance.
Determining the impact if something were to go wrong and consideration given to how serious the consequences could be for the consumer if controls are not put in place.
Providing the business with an overall food safety risk rating (low, medium or high).

About the assessment

When an EHO conducts an FSRA, they will:

Have an understanding of your business history.
Ask questions about what types of food are prepared and how they are processed.
Select a high risk food item or/meal from your menu and enquire about the steps in the preparation and ask how the business controls the risks.
Go over the outcomes and actions required to control food safety risks.
Provide business with a report that outlines the action in order or priority and has corresponding time-frames for the actions to be undertaken.
Provide the overall food safety risk rating to the business.
Follow up the actions that are to be completed by the business in the time-frames set.