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Everyone loves a home-cooked meal or treat but you’ve got to be careful if you plan to sell those goodies in Whyalla.
The rise of social media and ease of selling online has seen an increase in enquiries to the City of Whyalla about how you go about selling food you’ve made in your own kitchen. Council welcomes these enquiries and is all about encouraging small businesses but there are some very important considerations.
Council health officers have noticed more people using social media sites to sell their food without notifying council. It is a legal requirement of the Food Act 2001 that anyone selling food is required to register with council. Only low risk foods such as cakes, biscuits and jams that are non-potentially hazardous and don’t require refrigeration are able to be produced in domestic kitchens. Even then, these kitchens are still subject to inspections by council health officers and the person producing the goods must be registered with council as a food business.
Anything like meats, pastries, cakes with fresh creams, sandwiches and prepared meals are not suitable for production in a home kitchen where you’ve got a higher risk of contamination.
This is all done for a good reason. Apart from the big fines that can be applied to anyone producing and selling food from an unsuitable kitchen and not being registered with council, you could literally kill someone.
It is estimated that there are 5.4 million cases of food poisoning in Australia each year and 120 deaths.
Food poisoning can happen easily when you’ve got issues in your kitchen like inadequate space, lack of adequate refrigeration and storage, risks of pet and children entering the kitchen and unsuitable handwashing and sanitising facilities.
The good news is that council is available to help anyone who would like to set up a home-style or any other cooking business. That’s exactly what Whyalla resident Tania Marie Drobnjak (right) did when she realised she had a passion for cooking.
Tania saw a business opportunity when her home cooking kept getting snapped up by hungry family members and friends. Approaching the council for information on turning this talent into a business, Tania quickly found out her own kitchen wouldn’t cut it.
The solution was renting a house in Whyalla where she did a few alterations to the kitchen to make it a very affordable, working kitchen.
“It wasn’t hard, I just approached the council and Sam Bowman (Manager Environmental Health and Regulatory Services) confirmed I couldn’t do this from home, that I’d need a separate kitchen,” Tania said.
“Sam came out and went through what I needed to do and it was really quite simple.
“If I was going to do this, I wanted to do it properly because I use higher risk foods like chicken and beef, so I wanted make sure it was professional.”
Sam said some of the simple alterations that needed to be done included separate wash bowls for cleaning utensils and washing hands along with cooling and heating equipment and procedures and proper labelling.
“Tania did the right thing from the start by coming to see council,” Sam said.
“We came out, looked at the kitchen and worked out what was needed.
“When people are preparing this sort of food from home, they don’t have the necessary insurances and safe guards whereas Tania now does.”
Tania has gone from her eight or ten meals for family and friends to a part-time business that has produced up to 90 meals a day and generally averages about 30 to 40 a day on a pre-ordered basis.
“Because I done this the right way, it has set me up that if I want to get bigger I know what is required,” Tania said.
“Right now, I just love it. I walk in the door and this is my office, this is my business and I come here to work.”
Anyone looking to sell food products can contact the council health officers on 8640 3444. Food handling rules and regulations can be found on council’s website http://www.whyalla.sa.gov.au/page.aspx?u=865 where the Guidelines for Home Based Food document is attached.