Program tastes praise

– Shaun Inguanzo
WITH food poisoning affecting 5.4 million Australians each year, more authorities are turning their heads towards Greater Dandenong’s food safety measures for advice.
The City of Greater Dandenong last week celebrated Food Safety Week, encouraging residents to prepare food in safe, healthy manners.
But for those who choose to dine out, a safe and healthy restaurant is just as important and council’s business unit said it had seen an improvement in food handling over the past five years.
Council environmental health services leader Geoff Fraser said the monitoring regime imposed on Greater Dandenong’s 1200 food businesses was “one of the tightest in Victoria”.
Mr Fraser said the council’s success had attracted the attention of food authorities.
“This model of monitoring has had much positive feedback, even from the Department of Human Services,” he said. Mr Fraser said businesses were inspected three times a year and were scored in six categories of five points each, for a total score out of 30. He said any business which fell below a score of 18 “fell under the radar” of council’s scrutiny and would be closely monitored until it scored above 18.
“One of the very satisfying things over the last five years has been that the average score has increased by two whole points,” Mr Fraser said. “The average score across our 1200 food shops has gone up from about 21.7 to 23.7.”
Mr Fraser said he was pleased with the score considering the diversity of business types. Criteria include cleaning, food handling, food safety program adherence, temperature, presence and efforts of the food safety supervisor, and quality of the structure.
The food safety program has been in effect since 2001, Mr Fraser said.