Food Control Plan

Mahere whakarata kai

Food control plans (FCP) are written plans for managing food safety on a day-to-day basis. These are used by higher risk businesses. There are two types of FCP. Most businesses use a template FCP provided by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI). Some larger businesses choose to build their own custom food plan.

Template food control plans

Template food control plans are plans that enable a business to fulfil the requirements of the Food Act 2014.

They are based on pre-approved templates that need to be completed, implemented and kept on site. The templates need to be filled out by the operator and cover a range of topics including staff training, cleaning records, maintenance records and temperature records among others.

They encourage food operators to take direct responsibility for providing their customers with safe and suitable food by giving them nationally consistent measures that are intended to help them manage food safety in their business.

In general, most businesses will require two templates - a ‘Simply Safe and Suitable Pack template food control plan’ and a ‘Record Blanks’ template. You can download and print templates from the MPI website.

A food control plan requires some initial input of information, but once established only a minimal amount of work will be required on a daily basis. All staff at the premises should be aware of the food control plan and the recording requirements.

It is important to note the method of record-keeping at the premises is up to the operator. The Record Blanks document provides some pre-made templates for convenience, but the operator may choose to design their own templates. Operators must ensure their templates capture the necessary information and they can be accessed when asked by the verifier.

Custom food control plans

Some businesses may operate outside of the scope of the template food control plan. For these businesses an MPI registered custom food control plan may be required. Custom food control plans allow greater flexibility for a business, but require a significant initial input before they can be verified. They may involve proving your current methods are safe and suitable and this may entail lab testing to prove this.

Find out more about custom food control plans on the MPI website.

All custom food control plans need to be evaluated before the business can begin operating so forward planning is essential.

If you think your business may be subject to a custom food control plan then please contact an environmental health officer on (06) 278 0555 or 0800 111 323 to discuss.