Complaints about food and businesses

Overview

The Authority's helpline can respond to queries and complaints about food safety and labelling in NSW.

Helpline hours: 8.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday. Phone: 1300 552 406. A voicemail service will record messages left after hours for attention from the next business day.

Email: contact@foodauthority.nsw.gov.au
Fax: 02 9647 0026
Mail: PO Box 6682
Silverwater NSW 1811

If you think a food product has made you, or someone you know, sick, seek medical help. You can also report the matter to the helpline.

Commitment to world-class food complaint investigation

The Authority’s charter is to ensure that NSW consumers have access to safe and correctly labelled food, meeting the requirements of the Food Act 2003.

Food complaints can provide important information about risks in particular food businesses or food products. Management and staff of the Authority are committed to the effective handling of all complaints about food and food businesses.

The Authority’s food complaint handling policy is to:

• Respond to food complaints quickly and efficiently according to the seriousness of the complaint
• Conduct investigations professionally, applying the requirements of the Food Act 2003 expertly, fairly and consistently to all food businesses
• Take appropriate compliance and enforcement action against breaches of legislation
• Provide feedback to complainants on investigations (when complainants have provided their contact details)
• Protect the privacy of complainants while respecting the rights of food businesses
• Maintain a seamless, effective system of food standards enforcement with local councils and interstate agencies
• Assess the implementation of this policy against service-based complaint handling targets
• Regularly audit completed investigations for compliance with policy
• Continually improve complaint-handling performance

On behalf of management and staff of the Authority, I affirm our commitment to this policy and to the effective handling of food complaints for New South Wales.

Polly Bennett
CEO

How do I make a complaint about food or a food business?

If you have a problem with the labelling or food safety of a food or a food business you can contact the Authority by any of the methods given above.

Alternatively, contact your local council. The Authority and local councils share the workload and have agreed to refer complaints to each other depending on who is best placed to address them. Either way, your complaint gets into the system and will be dealt with by the most appropriate organisation.

If your complaint relates to food poisoning

It is important that if you are feeling unwell you should seek medical advice.

Medical professionals will assess your illness and may do tests to determine the cause. The results of these tests may be sent to the Health Department for further assessment.

The Authority monitors all complaints to identify when there may be patterns and connections between them. Where there are a number of similar complaints connected by the same food business or food, investigations will be made to determine the cause. This also occurs where reports relate to a group of people becoming ill after consuming the same food.

If there is just one person ill, an officer reviews the nature and details of the report. If it is likely the problem was due to food handling at home you will be given advice on how to help minimise the chance of it happening again.

See also: Foodborne illness facts and information page

Details to provide on food poisoning

Providing the following information will help the Authority investigate your food poisoning complaint:

• The nature, time and location of the incident
• Details of the restaurant, function or event where you believe you consumed the contaminated food including full street address details
• If anyone has become ill, their symptoms and when they started to become ill
• What they ate at the suspected meal and what others ate as well, including dips and sauces
• If there is any leftover food that could be tested if an officer determines this is warranted

The Authority works with the NSW Department of Health. Depending on the circumstances, someone from NSW Health may request more information from you.

The Authority may not be able to proceed with an investigation unless you can provide certain details.

You may be asked if the details of your complaint can be shared with other organisations, including government bodies which may be better placed to investigate your concerns. It is the Authority’s policy to not give your details to the food business unless you agree in advance.

If your complaint does not relate to food poisoning

There are many different types of complaint, including about foreign matter found in food, unhygienic premises or practices, and labelling. How they are investigated will vary depending on each circumstance. Steps may include:

• The Authority, NSW Health or the local council requesting more information from you, including interviewing you
• Contacting the food business about the allegation
• Inspecting the food business
• Collecting a sample from you
• Having the sample analysed by a laboratory

If you provide the Authority with a sample or article it is very unlikely it can be returned to you. This is because testing and analysis often results in destruction of the product.

If you intend to pursue a refund from the food business or your own action through the legal system, you should consider if you require any evidence or proof before you hand samples over to the Authority. You can discuss this with the Authority if you need to keep evidence for your own purposes.

Complaints about the Food Authority

If your complaint is about a member of NSW Food Authority staff, or NSW Food Authority service, please see: Complaints about the NSW Food Authority.

Complaints which will not be investigated

The Authority will not investigate:

• Complaints not about food or food businesses
• Frivolous, vexatious, retaliatory complaints or complaints not made in good faith
• Where there is insufficient information available to conduct an investigation
• Issues relating to changes in the Food Standards Code. These should be directed to Food Standards Australia and New Zealand on 1300 652 166 (within Australia)
• Issues relating to poor customer service, product warranties, weights and measures. These should be directed to the food business or the NSW Office of Fair Trading on 13 32 20
• Issues relating to nutrition and healthy eating. These should be directed to a medical advisor or area health service (see http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/hospitals/search.asp)
• Issues relating to liquor licensing. These should be directed to the NSW office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing on 02 9995 0300
• Issues relating to noise or the local environment. These should be directed to the local council (see www.dlg.nsw.gov.au)

Sometimes complaints may have been properly investigated directly by a food business or in some cases by other government agencies before the Authority is notified. The Authority might not investigate such complaints any further if there is no public health risk, no evidence of significant food process failure, or no significant breaches of legislation.

Damages and compensation

Complainants may wish to separately pursue compensation from the food business involved. The legislated role of the Authority is to enforce and encourage compliance with the Food Act. It is therefore unable to act on behalf of complainants for reimbursement of the cost of the food or for damages. The Authority cannot provide legal advice.

What happens next?

Investigating and resolving food complaints is one of the Authority’s most important roles. Once received by the helpline, your report will be logged in the Authority’s central data system. It will then be reviewed by an officer, prioritised and, depending on the details, may be allocated to a Food Safety Officer for investigation. To manage its resources, investigations into complaints are prioritised according to their relative seriousness. Food poisoning is a highly complex area so these reports are investigated by a specialist team.

Your complaint may be referred to the local council in the area where the food business is located. If it involves an interstate food business, it will be referred to the food regulatory agency in that state, which will be in a better position to investigate locally. You will be notified if your complaint has been referred and you will be given the contact details of the agency which will investigate your complaint.

Feedback

Unless your complaint is anonymous, you will be given feedback during an investigation if you enquire about its progress. This feedback will be as complete as possible within the constraints of the Authority’s enforcement policies, commercial-in-confidence and privacy law.

Unless your complaint is anonymous, you will be given feedback at the end of investigations when a decision has been reached, unless you specify at the outset that you do not want this. This end-of-investigations feedback will be written, or by phone if you prefer.

If your complaint is referred to local government or interstate, the Authority will let you know. You need to ask the agency to which the complaint is referred for any feedback.

Outcome of a complaint investigation

At the end of investigations the Authority may take enforcement action against the food business, including litigation through the courts, if it believes there has been a serious breach of the Act. In less serious cases, the food business may be put on notice to improve its performance, or placed under regular monitoring.

The Authority’s charter is to ensure that NSW consumers get access to safe and correctly labelled food. Complaints from the public are a key way the Authority hears about and rectifies problems. When you complain, perhaps the most important outcome is lifting the food industry’s awareness of its responsibilities to all of us as consumers.

Access to records

Some records of the Authority, including for complaints, may be accessible.

For details of who can access which records, and how to request access, see:

• access to information