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Since 8 December 2023, Standard 3.2.2A of the Food Standards Code has required most Australian food businesses that serve ready-to-eat food to have three things: trained food handlers, a certified food safety supervisor, and evidence that key activities are under control. Here's what that means for a cafe.
Sources checked 2026-07-09 · your local authority always has the final say.
3.2.2A · the essentials
Category one = unpackaged, potentially hazardous, ready-to-eat food. Your council and state authority administer the detail.
Standard 3.2.2A splits food service and retail businesses into two categories. Category one covers businesses that handle unpackaged, potentially hazardous food that's served ready-to-eat — which is most cafes making sandwiches, salads, cooked breakfasts or anything similar. Category two covers businesses that only sell such food pre-packaged, like a shop retailing sandwiches made elsewhere.
Category one businesses need all three management tools: food handler training, a food safety supervisor, and substantiation. Category two businesses need the first two.
What each tool means in practice:
Substantiation is where daily records enter the picture. The standard doesn't dictate a single format — but the straightforward way to show receipt, storage, processing and display of potentially hazardous food are under control is to record them: fridge temperatures at 5 °C or below, hot holding at 60 °C or above, delivery checks, cleaning sign-offs, and corrective actions when something's out of range.
That's the record set ProCafe's Australian defaults produce day to day — 5 °C / 60 °C control points, council-ready exports — with each state and territory's registration details covered on our state pages. Your council always has the final say on what it accepts as evidence.
Common questions
If you serve unpackaged, potentially hazardous, ready-to-eat food — most cafes do — you're a category one business and need all three tools: trained food handlers, a certified food safety supervisor, and substantiation evidence. Your local council administers the detail.
Evidence your council accepts that prescribed activities are under control — most straightforwardly, records: temperature logs for receipt, storage and display of potentially hazardous food, cleaning and sanitising records, and corrective actions. The standard allows other methods, but records are the common route.
The FSS must have been certified within the past five years through a registered training organisation, and must be reasonably available to supervise food handling. Some states (like NSW) run their own FSS certification schemes with their own recertification detail — check your state authority.
Keep going
Links verified 2026-07-09. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.
More guides: Food safety programs (AU) · Safe temperatures (AU)
ProCafe turns these checks into clean, time-stamped records on your team's phones — organised by site and ready to show at an inspection.
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