Have your say
The Ministry of Education (MoE) has requested approval of its Template Food Control Plan (FCP), under Section 40 of the Food Act 2014.
The MoE FCP is:
- modelled on the Ministry for Primary Industries' (MPI) Simply Safe & Suitable Template FCP (issued March 2017).
- tailored specifically for school lunch providers who are part of the Free and Healthy School Lunch Programme.
Schools participating in the lunch programme will be subject to a FCP risk-based measure for preparing meals.
MPI has evaluated the MoE’s plan to ensure it meets the requirements of the Food Act 2014 and allows for schools to receive, store, make, serve, and deliver safe and suitable food.
We want your feedback. Do you see any problems with approving the MoE Free and Healthy School Lunches Programme Template FCP?
The consultation will run until 5pm on 12 July 2020.
Consultation documents
The MoE’s FCP is available only to schools participating in the Free and Healthy School Lunch Programme. However, you can download MPI's evaluation of the MoE FCP template.
Evaluation report for MoE [PDF, 802 KB]
Draft approved Food Control Plan Template (MoE) – Food Notice [PDF, 528 KB]
Making your submission
Email your submission by 5pm on 12 July 2020 to foodact.2014@mpi.govt.nz
Make sure you include in your submission:
- the title of the document in the subject line of your email
- your name and title (if applicable)
- your organisation's name (if applicable)
- your address.
While we prefer email, you can post your submission to:
Food Implementation Programme
Ministry for Primary Industries
PO Box 2526
Wellington 6140
New Zealand.
Background to Section 40 applications
The Food Act 2014, which came into effect in March 2016, introduced a risk-based approach to managing food safety. FCPs are written plans that identify food safety risks and set out how they will be managed on a day-to-day basis.
The Food Act requires that food business operators take responsibility for ensuring food is safe and suitable. Businesses need to be aware of the risks and be able to show how they are managing these. Section 40 of the Food Act allows MPI’s chief executive to approve a template or model FCP which has been developed outside of MPI.
This allows food businesses or industry groups to:
- develop their own FCP and have it approved so that each business using the plan does not need to submit their plan for individual evaluation, and
- make adjustments to the MPI templates to include multi-site or multi-business specific procedures or practices, or to reflect common language/terminology used in the business and have those changes approved.
Submissions are public information
Note, that any submission you make becomes public information. People can ask for copies of submissions under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). The OIA says we have to make submissions available unless we have a good reason for withholding it (refer to sections 6 and 9 of the OIA).
Tell us if you think there are grounds to withhold specific information in your submission. Reasons might include that it's commercially sensitive or it's personal information. However, any decision MPI makes to withhold information can be reviewed by the Ombudsman, who may tell us to release it.
