Delivering Food....Some tips for businesses looking to deliver food

With the relaxation of state and territory planning laws, and allowances for changes of scope of business activities in the food service industry, many restaurants and caterers are finding alternative ways of selling their produce. We have seen many businesses offer delivery services for meals, ready to eat, or offering meal or grocery meal components.
Here are some reminders on food safety for home deliveries.
There is also a useful resource sheet published by The Victorian Health Department :
https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/public-health/food-safety/food-businesses/food-how-to-keep-it-safe/food-business-home-delivery-guide.

• Prevent contamination- including cross contamination from product to product- including microbial and allergen cross contamination. All packaging should be in tact.
• Allergens and other information such as storage conditions need to be available, at the request of the customer.
• Deliveries of cold food should be < 5 degrees C. Frozen food should be hard frozen.
  Hot food should be hot > 60 degrees C. The normal food safety temperature controls in the Food Standards Code applies to deliveries of food.
• Aim to maintain the temperature controls by using refridgerators , eskies, ice packs.
  Be aware- ice packs may not keep the food under 5 degrees C, but will reduce the temperature and prevent a rise to temperatures where bacterial growth is rapid- ie 20+.
  Should you not be able to control the temperature within the limits , ie < 5 degrees then the 2/4 hour storage rule applies. That means the packing and the delivery should be achieved less than <2 hours, given the customer will be then placing this back in their refrigerator.
• If you can show that the ice packs successfully keep the food temperature under 5 degrees then you don’t need to worry about the delivery time limits.
  Alternative may be to put all perishable items in one central esky, powered refrigerator, and maintain the temperature of those perishable items to less than 5 degrees and assemble the customer package on arrival at each address/ site.
• There should be some records- Packed time, it left the refrigerator and time of last delivery is one such option.
  or temperature of last perishable item.
  Aim for 30- 1 hour delivery time for last delivery…
  Have instructions for delivery staff if delivery time  or temperature exceeds limit.
• Let customers know of delivery time, so they are home and can place the food quickly in their refrigerator.
  Advise of need to store in the refrigerator.
  The customer should be advised that the safety of food cannot be guaranteed if it has been left unattended.​