Push to grade all Wanganui food premises

Hundreds of food premises in Wanganui do not need a food grade to operate, but Wanganui District Council's environmental health officer Mike Sigley is pushing to change that.
The environmental health officer inspects all premises selling food and then grades them to particular guidelines set by the council's by-law.
The grading system covers all but 14 of the 315 Wanganui businesses from butcher shops and dairies through to cafes and restaurants.
Mr Sigley said the council used an A, B or no grade system for premises, but businesses do not need a grade to operate in Wanganui.
The Wanganui by-law is designed to encourage the food industry to achieve higher food safety standards.
"We use these ratings because a food premise is either clean or not clean, but a lot are average," he said.
Each business has to pass at least 23 out of 28 standards that the council puts to the business in relation to food hygiene and structure, before they can obtain an A-grading. To obtain a B-grade a business has to have less than 10 errors.
Examples of things that the food premise checklist looks for are, cleaning procedures, staff training (course attended), insect and rodent control, floor space, proper ventilation, good plumbing, hot water at the right temperature for cleaning, grease traps properly cleaned, conduct around the kitchen and adequate space around the kitchen area.
Mr Sigley said it was up to the assessor whether a problem was serous or minor.
"An example, if meat is being stored at 8degC it is a major fault, whereas if it is stored at 6degC it maybe a minor one."
He said all food premises must have the correct ratio of qualified staff otherwise they were breaking the Wanganui District Council by-law of 1996.
"If premises do not have two-thirds of their staff properly trained then they are breaking the by-law.
"If food premises just followed the guidelines they would not have a problem obtaining an A-rating," he said.
"Hopefully there will be more A-grades this year, because some food premises have put a lot of time and money into upgrading their business.
"We like them to have common sense and there are some who leave food out rather than have it refrigerated, although most seem to have some common sense," he said.
Other councils around New Zealand have put information about their grading systems on their webpage, and Auckland City Council has gone to the lengths of having every food establishments' grade on the webpage for anyone to look at. Mr Sigley said Environmental Services was looking to introduce a D and E rating so it would be easy to distinguish between average food premises and the ones that were at the bottom of the pile.
"The D is to give them a chance to get away from an E. It has to pass through the council before we can change the by-law so it probably won't happen for another year," he said.
However, an A-grading does not guarantee a patron safe passage from food poisoning.
"Places can have an A-grade and people can still get food poisoning, and vice versa. Last year we had about a dozen reports of food poisoning within the city, which is quite low" he said.
All the restaurants not up to grade and that were contacted by the Chronicle, were unavailable for comment.
The eateries that are on the A-list that the Chronicle talked to, are very proud to be on it and can not imagine why other premises do not want to get on board.
Ucol School of Catering and Hospitality tutor Gina Wagstaffe said the tutors tried to instil in their students the principles of safe and healthy food preparation and cooking.
"It's scary that so many don't make the grade. It is just simple things to get an A-grade, and people need to take pride in what they do," she said.
Celtic Arms owner Robin Munro said he thought it would be paramount that businesses are seen to be clean and doing the job right.
"I'm proud of my A-grade. It is also a tribute to my staff who are all responsible for keeping my business clean," he said.
Out of the 19 restaurants and caf?s in the Chronicle's Dining Out section only two have a grading, but some are making preparations to gain one in the near future.
Stellar manager Margaret Sugden said they had put a lot of money into improving their facilities to make the A-grade, and she hoped to get it this year.