Complaint and Compliance Procedures
What this domain covers
How the public and food businesses interact with PFA: lodging a complaint, the evidence needed, how the Authority inspects and enforces, and how a business demonstrates compliance and challenges a decision.
Raising a complaint
- Use PFA’s complaint helpline, mobile app, website or a regional office.
- Give the business name and full address, date and time, product name and batch or expiry, the exact fault (foreign object, spoilage, adulteration, hygiene, overpricing), and your contact details.
- Attach evidence: receipt, photographs, and the product itself, kept sealed and refrigerated where possible.
- If people became ill, seek medical attention, mention the suspected food, and keep the medical record.
What happens next
PFA logs the complaint; a Food Safety Officer inspects and may take samples for laboratory testing; the result determines the action - guidance, improvement notice, fine, sealing, product recall or prosecution. The business is normally given a chance to respond to a show-cause notice and has a right of appeal against an order.
Business compliance
Respond to notices in writing within the stated time, correct the fault, keep proof of correction, and conduct a voluntary withdrawal or recall if a product is affected. Cooperate with inspectors, produce records, and never alter or destroy food under complaint.
Worked example
A customer finds glass in a sealed juice bottle and has the receipt. Reasoning: the seal points to a fault at the production stage rather than at the shop. She should keep the bottle unopened, photograph it, and complain quoting the batch code and receipt. PFA can then trace the batch and, if needed, order withdrawal of the whole lot - something impossible without the batch code.
Traps
- Discarding the product or receipt before complaining.
- Complaining anonymously with no address or date.
- Ignoring an improvement notice until a sealing order follows.
- Assuming a complaint automatically means prosecution - most end in correction.