At least three months in Australia under Standard 3.2.2A, and at least four years in New Zealand under a food control plan, a sixteenfold gap for the same cafe doing the same cooking.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for restaurants, cafes and takeaways in Australia and New Zealand, and this question keeps coming up because almost everything that ranks for it is written for Britain or the United States. Below are the two actual retention periods with the regulator's own wording, the records that have to exist, what a New Zealand court did about four missing entries, and the four things a records system has to do to survive a kitchen.
At least three months. That is the retention period attached to the substantiation requirements in Standard 3.2.2A of the Food Standards Code, which Food Standards Australia New Zealand states plainly: records must be kept for at least 3 months. The requirement came into effect in December 2023 and it applies to category one businesses, which is food service, caterers and related retail. A restaurant, a cafe and a takeaway are all in it.
Three months is short, and operators consistently guess longer. It is short because of what the Code is trying to do. Standard 3.2.2A does not want an archive. It wants an inspector who walks in today to be able to see whether the controls were working recently, which is a different question from whether they worked in 2023.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for restaurants and cafes on both sides of the Tasman, and we put this page together because the two countries give opposite answers and most of what ranks for the question is written for the United Kingdom or the United States.
At least four years. Sixteen times the Australian period, for the same kind of venue doing the same kind of cooking. MPI's template food control plan, Simply Safe and Suitable, puts it in one line in the Taking responsibility card on page 19: keep a copy of all documents or records required for at least 4 years.
The same page sets the standard those records have to meet. They must be accurate, easy to read, and show what was done, when, and by whom, and you have to hand them to your verifier or registration authority when asked. A diary with blanks in it is a record that fails all three tests.
| Australia | New Zealand | |
|---|---|---|
| Retention | At least 3 months | At least 4 years |
| Instrument | Standard 3.2.2A, Food Standards Code | Food control plan under the Food Act |
| In force | December 2023 | Current template |
| Who checks | Local council environmental health officer | Your verifier, then the registration authority |
One warning before you set a shredding rule from that table. The three month figure is the Code floor for Standard 3.2.2A substantiation records. State and territory food Acts, and your own licence conditions, can require particular records for longer, and this page has not read all eight jurisdictions. If you are deciding what to destroy rather than what to keep, ask your council first. If you are deciding what to keep, keep more than three months and the question goes away.
In New Zealand the template plan names them, and the list is longer than most operators realise. Training records with the trainer and trainee signatures. A written record of when staff were sick. Receiving records with the supplier name and contact, the type and quantity of food, and the temperature where it matters. Cold holding temperature checks. Cooking records for poultry, minced meat and liver showing the food, the date, the temperature and the time held. Cooling records showing the food, the date cooked and the cooling time for each batch. Maintenance. Harvest declarations for live shellfish. Hot holding checks. Transport temperatures for anything not used within four hours of entering the danger zone.
In Australia the evidence trail is narrower but it exists for the same reasons, and the cooking and cooling pair is where it bites. Our page on the two hour four hour rule covers the time and temperature logic those records are proving.
The common thread is worth saying out loud, because it changes how you file. Nearly every required record is a temperature plus a time plus a name. Not a document. If your system produces those three things reliably, you have complied; if it produces a beautiful folder with Saturday missing, you have not.
This is where the question stops being administrative. On 20 January 2025 an Auckland food business and its manager were sentenced over record keeping. New Zealand Food Safety reported that Soma and Sons Ltd, trading as Tasty Foods, was fined NZ$13,500 for failing to comply with its food control plan, and the manager was fined NZ$3,000 for giving false information to a food safety officer. NZ$16,500 in total.
The detail is the part worth reading twice. The missing records were cooking and cooling temperatures for samosas, not recorded as the plan required, on four occasions between 2020 and 2022. Four missing entries, spread over two years, in a business that was presumably cooking samosas safely most days. Vincent Arbuckle of New Zealand Food Safety made the reasoning explicit: good record keeping is an important part of a food safety culture, and poor records make it harder to trace where a risk came from.
That is the honest answer to "does anyone actually check". The cost is not the fine on its own. It is the fine, the court time, the name in a media release, and the verification frequency that follows a non compliance, which is a cost that runs for years.
Four things, and the order matters because the first one carries the other three.
It has to be filled in at the moment. Records written up at the end of the week are the ones that have gaps, and a gap is what an inspector finds first. Put the record where the task happens, not in the office.
It has to name a person. Both countries require who, not just what. A tick with no initial fails the easy to read, what was done and by whom test on page 19 of the template plan.
It has to survive staff turnover. Hospitality turnover is the real enemy of a records habit, and our page on restaurant staff turnover has the numbers. A system that depends on one diligent chef lasts exactly as long as that chef does. Train it the way you train anything else that has to outlive the person, which is covered on how to train restaurant staff.
It has to be findable four years later in New Zealand. Four years of paper diaries is a filing problem on its own. Digital or scanned is fine in both countries as long as the record is accurate, readable and producible on request. Whatever you choose, decide where it lives before you need it.
If you run a New Zealand business on a national programme rather than a food control plan, your record obligations are lighter and the four year line above is not aimed at you: check what your registration says. If you are an Australian business outside category one, Standard 3.2.2A's substantiation requirements may not apply to you in the same way, and your council is the authority on that. And if you are a coffee window serving only pre packaged food, most of the cooking and cooling records simply never arise.
Everyone else should treat the retention period as a floor, not a target. The cost of keeping a year of temperature logs is a box. The cost of not having four entries is on the record above. If you are setting up a venue and costing the compliance side of it, our pages on food safety supervisor requirements and the cost of a food control plan in New Zealand cover what sits around the records.
Indirectly, but it is the same failure. The records that go missing are the ones that needed doing during a rush, and so are the calls. Skai Solutions answers the phone for restaurants, cafes and takeaways in Australia and New Zealand, takes the booking or the order and puts it where your team will see it, with setup taking about five days. It will not fill in your cooling log. It will stop the phone being the reason nobody did.
How long do you have to keep food safety records in Australia?
At least three months. Food Standards Australia New Zealand states that records kept under the Standard 3.2.2A substantiation requirements must be kept for at least 3 months. Those requirements came into effect in December 2023 and apply to category one businesses, which covers food service, caterers and related retail. State and territory food Acts and your own licence conditions can require particular records for longer.
How long do you have to keep food safety records in New Zealand?
At least four years. MPI's template food control plan, Simply Safe and Suitable, says on page 19 to keep a copy of all documents or records required for at least 4 years. The same page requires records to be accurate, easy to read, and to show what was done, when and by whom, and to be produced to your verifier or registration authority on request.
Why is the New Zealand period so much longer than the Australian one?
Because the two systems ask different questions. The Australian substantiation requirement is aimed at whether your controls are working now, so three months of evidence answers it. A New Zealand food control plan is a plan you are verified against over multiple cycles, so the records are the evidence of the plan running, and four years covers several verification visits.
What food safety records does a restaurant have to keep?
Most required records are a temperature, a time and a name. In New Zealand the template plan names training records, sick staff records, receiving records, cold holding checks, cooking records for poultry, minced meat and liver, cooling records per batch, hot holding checks, maintenance and transport temperatures. In Australia the trail is narrower but cooking and cooling evidence is the core of it.
What is the penalty for not keeping food safety records?
In New Zealand it has reached court. On 20 January 2025 an Auckland business trading as Tasty Foods was fined NZ$13,500 for failing to comply with its food control plan and its manager NZ$3,000 for giving false information to a food safety officer, NZ$16,500 in total. The missing records were samosa cooking and cooling temperatures on four occasions between 2020 and 2022.
Can food safety records be kept digitally?
Yes in both countries, as long as the record meets the same standard as paper: accurate, readable, showing what was done, when and by whom, and able to be produced when your verifier or an environmental health officer asks. Digital helps most in New Zealand, where four years of paper diaries becomes a storage problem in its own right.
Do employment records follow the same rule?
No, and conflating them is a common mistake. Food safety records and employment or payroll records sit under different laws with different retention periods and different regulators. The periods on this page are food safety only. Check the employment rules separately rather than applying three months or four years to a payroll file.