Food grade certificates give customers assurance that the food that they are buying is safe and suitable to eat. They also show how well the outlet has met its quality and hygiene requirements under the Food Act 2014.
Te mārama ki ngā māhiti kai Understanding food grades
What the eatsafe Auckland grades mean
Our food grading system is called eatsafe Auckland.
The grade on the certificate is based on the food outlet's food safety, quality and hygiene standards.
The grade takes into account an outlet's:
- process control
- environmental control
- food safety behaviour
- confidence in management
- compliance history.
A: Excellent
Scored between 91-100 per cent.
These businesses provide the highest level of confidence that they manage a food control plan, practise our four Cs of Cook, Clean, Chill and Conduct, and consistently produce safe and suitable kai.
Minor issues around documentation may cause the score to fall below 100 per cent.
B: Good
Scored between 61-90 per cent.
These businesses provide a good level of confidence that they manage a food control plan, practise our four Cs of Cook, Clean, Chill and Conduct, and produce safe and suitable kai.
There may be areas for improvement that do not directly impact food safety, usually around documentation and procedures.
C: Satisfactory
Scored between 50-60 per cent.
These businesses provide a level of confidence that they produce safe kai.
There may be multiple areas for improvement that do not directly impact food safety, particularly around their observed practices. There could also be improvements around documentation and procedures.
We introduced the C grade to provide a distinction between businesses that meet the minimum requirements for food safety and suitability, and businesses that just fail to meet the minimum requirements and present the potential for unsafe or unsuitable production of kai.
D: Enforcement action
These businesses have been identified as having issues that are likely to result in kai being unsafe or unsuitable, and action has been taken as a response.
E: Enforcement action
These businesses have had a critical issue relating to food safety, and have been closed as a result.
They will be permitted to trade again once we are confident they are providing safe kai.