Food Act 2014 Fines and Penalties Explained

Most food business operators know they need to follow the Food Act 2014. Fewer know what actually happens when they don’t. The penalties are real, they’re public, and they go well beyond a slap on the wrist.

If you run a food business in New Zealand, you should understand what enforcement looks like, what triggers it, and what it could cost you.

How Enforcement Works Under the Food Act 2014

MPI (the Ministry for Primary Industries) is responsible for enforcing the Food Act. In practice, most enforcement starts at the local council level through food safety officers and verification agencies, then escalates to MPI if the issue is serious enough.

There are several levels of enforcement, roughly in order of severity:

• Improvement notices: a written direction to fix a specific problem within a set timeframe.
• Compliance orders: a formal legal order requiring you to do (or stop doing) something. Ignoring one is an offence in itself.
• Infringement notices: an on-the-spot fine, typically $500 for an individual or $1,000 for a body corporate, per offence.
• Prosecution: court action for serious or repeated breaches. This is where the large fines come in, up to $100,000 for individuals and $500,000 for companies.

You can read more about the enforcement process on MPI’s enforcement page.

Real Cases: What NZ Food Businesses Have Actually Been Fined

These aren’t hypothetical. These are real prosecutions under food safety legislation in New Zealand.

Soma & Sons Ltd (Tasty Foods): $16,500 Total

Soma & Sons, operating as Tasty Foods, was fined $13,500 as a company, and the manager personally fined $3,000. The issue? Missing cooking and cooling records.

Not contaminated food. Not a food poisoning outbreak. Missing records. The business wasn’t able to demonstrate that it was properly controlling the safety of cooked and cooled products.

This is one of the most common problems that verifiers flag. If you’re not recording your cooking temperatures, cooling times, and related checks, you’re exposed. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing everything right in the kitchen. If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen, at least as far as enforcement is concerned.

If you want to get your records in order, our guide on corrective actions covers how to document things properly when something goes wrong.

NZ Sugar Company (Chelsea Sugar): $149,500 Fine, $3.4M Total Cost

Chelsea Sugar was fined $149,500 after contaminated sugar made it to market. But the fine was only part of the story. The total cost to the company, including the recall, legal costs, and other expenses, came to around $3.4 million.

This is the case that should make every food manufacturer pay attention. The direct fine is one thing. The recall costs, the reputational damage, the legal fees, those add up fast and they dwarf the court-imposed penalty.

Hellers Ltd: $39,375 Fine + $15,000 to Victims

Hellers was fined $39,375 and ordered to pay $15,000 to affected consumers after mislabelled sausages caused allergic reactions. The sausages contained allergens that were not declared on the packaging.

Allergen mislabelling is taken extremely seriously by MPI and the courts. When someone ends up in hospital because the label on your product is wrong, the consequences are severe, and rightly so.

Foodstuffs South Island: $39,000

Foodstuffs South Island was fined $39,000 for selling recalled hummus. The product had been recalled, and the business continued to sell it.

This is a straightforward case: when a product is recalled, you pull it from your shelves. Having proper procedures and trained staff for handling recalls is a basic part of running a compliant food business.

The Most Common Violations That Lead to Enforcement

Based on published enforcement actions and what verification agencies report, the issues that most often lead to formal enforcement include:

1. Incomplete or missing records: temperature logs, cleaning records, and corrective action documentation. This is by far the most common gap.
2. Operating without a valid Food Control Plan or National Programme: some businesses either never register, or let their registration lapse.
3. Allergen management failures: mislabelling, cross-contamination, or no allergen management plan at all.
4. Ignoring verification findings: when a verifier raises a critical non-compliance and you don’t fix it, that’s a fast path to formal enforcement.
5. Selling recalled products: either through poor communication, poor stock management, or just ignoring the recall.

If you’re preparing for a verification visit and want to make sure you’re not caught out on any of these, take a look at our verification visit preparation guide.

Individual Liability: It’s Not Just the Company

One detail that catches people off guard is that the Food Act allows for prosecution of individuals, not just the business. Directors, managers, and officers of a company can be held personally liable if they directed, authorised, or were involved in the offending conduct.

The Soma & Sons case is a clear example. The company was fined, and the manager was fined separately on top of that. If you’re a manager or owner, the company structure does not shield you from personal liability.

How to Stay on the Right Side of the Food Act

None of this is designed to scare you. The Food Act 2014 exists to keep people safe, and the vast majority of food businesses in New Zealand operate within the rules without any issues. The businesses that run into trouble are almost always the ones that let their systems slide.

The practical steps are not complicated:

• Have a valid Food Control Plan and make sure it reflects what you actually do.
• Keep your records up to date. Temperature checks, cleaning logs, corrective actions. Do them daily and record them.
• Take verification seriously. When your verifier raises an issue, fix it and document the fix. Our guide on how to pass a food safety audit covers this in detail.
• Train your staff. Everyone who handles food needs to understand the basics. Everyone who keeps records needs to know how to do it properly.
• Act on recalls immediately. Have a process for checking and responding to recalls.

If keeping on top of records and compliance feels like a constant battle, tools like the Template FCP App can help you manage your Food Control Plan documentation, track corrective actions, and stay prepared for verification visits without drowning in paperwork.

The Bottom Line

The Food Act 2014 has real teeth. Fines range from $500 infringement notices all the way up to six-figure court penalties, and the financial damage from recalls and reputational harm can be many times larger than the fine itself. The good news is that staying compliant is not difficult if you have good systems and actually use them. Keep your records current, respond to issues promptly, and treat verification as a tool for improvement rather than a box-ticking exercise.