November 25, 2012
People who sell food at any of the South Burnett’s markets may need to apply for a new type of food vendor’s licence next year.
At last week’s monthly meeting, Council officers suggested the SBRC add a new Home Based Business – Market Licence to the council’s existing Food Business licences.
They proposed the new licence have an assessment charge of $72, an annual licence fee of $57 and an annual renewal fee of $57.
Cr Keith Campbell asked where this idea had come from, and what might happen if it were adopted.
Council officers said the issue had come up when a professional food van operator at a local market had complained his business was required to undergo food safety checks and pay the Council annual licence fees in order to operate, but amateur food sellers did not.
The operator thought this was unfair.
The officer said as the public could get food poisoning from an unlicensed food seller, Council had a duty of care to look at the matter.
Mayor Wayne Kratzmann agreed Council had a duty to protect public safety but he had two main issues with the proposal as it stood.
One was that professional food vendors at markets competed with mainstreet businesses, so they needed to be regulated just as stringently.
Secondly, the proposal could also affect many community-minded volunteers selling low-risk foods, such as mums who whip up the occasional batch of cakes, jams or pickles for church fetes, P&C fund-raisers and the like.
Cr Kratzmann said a one-time licence fee rather than an annual licence in these cases might be a better approach.
He suggested councillors defer the decision to give the matter “more thought”.
Cr Kathy Duff agreed with the Mayor that more thought should be given to discriminating between people who sell “high risk” and “low risk” foods.
“I don’t know of anyone who’s had food poisoning from a cake,” she said.
Cr Barry Green agreed, saying he thought the idea was “a bit of overkill” and perhaps the proposal should just be limited to those who sell at markets.
Cr Campbell warned the flipside of any licensing proposal was the cost of Council staff time.
“If there’s only been one complaint then I suggest public consultation about this would be a good thing,” he said.
Cr Deb Palmer agreed, and proposed the idea be laid on the table until the Council had more opportunity to discuss the issue with the broader community and get feedback.
The new food licence has now been deferred pending further investigations.
