Verification of your food business

How it works

A verifier will visit your business to check that you are following acceptable food safety practices. They'll look at things like:

• paperwork
• temperature monitoring
• long-term maintenance plans
• cleaning schedules
• staff training.

They need to understand how you run your business throughout the year and what systems you have in place to address food safety risks.

Getting verified

Your first verification will happen within 6 weeks of your food registration certificate being approved. How often you'll need to be verified in the future depends on the outcome of the previous verification and your business's level of risk.

1. Get your food registration certificate

Your food business can only be verified if you have a current food registration certificate.

Applying for a food registration certificate

Renewing your food registration certificate

2. Arranging a visit

A Council verification officer will contact you around 2 weeks before the date your verification is due to arrange a visit.

If you operate under a food control plan, you will be verified by one of our Council verification officers.

If you are registered under a national programme (NP), you can choose to use one of our Council verification officers or someone from the Ministry of Primary Industries' list of approved third-party verifiers.

Food Act 2014 – verified persons – MPI

3. The verification visit

The length of the visit will depend on the size of your business and the processes you use. Generally, it will take 1.5 to 3 hours onsite and extra time to follow up if there are things you need to fix or improve.

4. Ongoing verifications

Time between verifications can be anything from 3 months to 18 months — it depends on the type of business you run and how well you did at your last verification.

Fees

All fees include GST.

Need help?

The Public Health team is available Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm.

Public Health
Phone: 04 499 4444
Email: publichealthenquiries@wcc.govt.nz