Food premises

Registration

The food premises licensing period runs from 1 September to 31 August the following year.

All food premises are subject to regular inspections and must meet food hygiene standards. In order to obtain registration, at least one person working in your premises must hold a certificate in basic food safety.

Register a new premises
Take over an existing premises
Renew your registration
Refunds

Register a new premises

There are two options for registering a food premises.

1. Registration under the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974

Your premises must comply with the requirements of the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974. Regulations are available from

Auckland University of Technology
Student Plaza, Gate 2
Wellesley Street
Auckland

You need to complete an application form for registration prior to opening.

Contact us for assistance and an application form. Application forms are not available online as the registration fee will need to be calculated and included on the form before it is sent out.

2. Registration of a Food Safety Programme

Once a Food Safety Programme (FSP) is registered, your premises is automatically exempt from the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974. A registered FSP is based on the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system. It can be registered and must be approved by an authorised auditor (either a Local Authority such as Auckland City Council or Auckland Healthcare).

The principles of HACCP can be used as a tool to write your Food Safety Programme. It is a documented system which identifies food safety hazards within your premises and details procedures to control these hazards.

If you do not have an approved FSP in place when opening your food premises you will need to comply with the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974.

If you choose to register an HACCP based Food Safety Programme you will receive an exemption from the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974. For information about registering an HACCP based Food Safety Programme contact:

Auckland District Health Board
Health Protection Officers
Phone: 262 1855.

Take over an existing premises

If you take over an existing premises, you must notify us and complete a registration form. The transfer fee is $72.

If you want to transfer the licence and it has expired, or if it is due for renewal, you have 14 days to do so. After this period, the licence can not be transferred or renewed and you will have to apply for a new licence at an additional cost of $130.

Contact us for an application and guidelines on what you will need to do. Application forms are not currently available online as the registration fee will need to be calculated and included on the form before it is sent out.

Renew your registration

Food premises licences expire on 31 August each year, you will receive a renewal application from us before this.

When you receive it, you must apply for renewal within 14 days of the expiry date by:

returning the renewal notice and payment to Auckland City Council. Cheques should be made out to Auckland City Council
visiting any Auckland City Council service centre.

After this 14 days the licence can not be transferred or renewed and you will have to apply for a new licence at an additional cost of $130.

Include copies of all Food Hygiene Certificates with your application or, where your staff member has trained with Auckland City Council, record the certificate number on the application. The number of certificates held by a food premises will affect the registration fee for the following year.

Fees

The fee for renewing a Food premises licence will be included on the form. The fee will be based on the state of the premises at the time of the last inspection and will apply for the full year.

The cost of registration depends on

the type of food prepared or sold
the size/seating of the premises
the level of cleaning and sanitising
the number of people holding the Basic Food Safety Certificate (based on the previous years records)

Any improvements you have made since the last inspection will not affect the fee for the year. If, however, the improvements relate to any of the standards on which the grading system is based, then it may affect the grading of the premises.

If you purchased the premises during the registration year, ie between 1 September and 31 August, you will have paid a $72 transfer fee. You will still be required to pay the annual licence fee as the transfer fee only covers the transfer of the licence from one owner to the next.

Refunds

We do not offer a refund on surrendered licences (eg if the business closes down).

Tell us what you think

Do you own or manage a food premise in Auckland city? We want to know what you think about the support you receive from our environmental health staff. Click here to complete a short survey.

Updated July 2008