Due diligence, Food Safety Glossary

Taking all reasonable precautions and exercising due care to prevent a food safety breach. Due diligence describes taking all reasonable precautions and exercising all due diligence to prevent a food safety offence from occurring. In some Australian state and territory food laws, being able to show due diligence can form a defence if a business is prosecuted, provided it genuinely did everything reasonable to prevent the problem. Due diligence is not a single document. It is demonstrated through a combination of systems and evidence: written procedures, staff training, monitoring and records, corrective actions, approved supplier checks and prompt responses to problems. The stronger and more consistent this evidence, the more credible a due diligence position becomes. For a food business, due diligence is really the sum of doing food safety properly and being able to prove it. Trained staff, a food safety supervisor, temperature logs, cleaning records, calibrated thermometers and documented corrective actions all contribute to showing that reasonable care was taken. The practical lesson is that records and consistency matter. A business that can produce clear, contemporaneous records of its checks and how it handled problems is far better placed than one that says it does the right thing but has no evidence to back it up. After a customer complaint, an environmental health officer reviews a Newcastle restaurant. Because the business can produce staff training records, daily temperature logs and documented corrective actions, it demonstrates it took all reasonable precautions, supporting a due diligence position.