Food safety and export access

Tasmania’s Primary Produce Safety Act 2011:

• requires compliance with the requirements of the Federal Government’s Food Standards Code, and
• requires compliance with any applicable food safety scheme.

The Primary Produce Safety (Seafood) Regulations 2014 establishes a food safety scheme for seafood.  This means that the production of seafood without accreditation is banned, and that seafood producers must:

• be accredited, and pay accreditation fees,
• prepare, gain approval of, implement, and arrange for an approved auditor to regularly audit, a food safety program (unless the producer is an exempt on-grower),
• comply with Standard 4.2.1 – Primary Production and Processing Standard for Seafood, which in turn requires:
  • compliance with a biotoxin management plan,
    • Sampling results are published in Biotoxin News.
  • implementation of a documented food safety management system, and
    • A template for preparing a food safety management system is here.
  • compliance with the Australian Shellfish Quality Assurance Advisory Committee Operations Manual (the ASQAP Manual),
• comply with conditions regarding:
  • relaying, wet storage, storage, handling, supply, testing, and reporting, and
  • what areas stock can be taken from, or brought to.
    • Decisions regarding the areas where stock can be taken from or brought to take into account Standard 4.2.1 and advice or directions from the Director of Public Health or the Director of the Environment Protection Authority.​

The federal government permits exports only where standards set out in Export Control (Fish and Fish Products) Rules 2021, and any additional standards of the importing country, are met.

​Tasmania’s Food Act 2003 places general obligations on food producers, including with respect to product recalls, which are enforced by local government and the Department of Health.