Providing meals or preparing food for children brings early childhood centres under the Food Act, ‘national programme 2’.
All existing ECE services to whom the Food Act applies must apply for registration before or by 31 March 2017 at the latest!
Applications must be made at least 3 months before registration is necessary (30 June 2017).
The information shared below for ECE services covers:
- Exemptions and how to know for sure if your service must register under the Food Act or not
- Alternative practices your early childhood service could choose to adopt so it no longer comes under 'national programme 2'.
- The benefits of the new Food Act for children, ECE providers and the ECE sector
- The costs and what’s involved: The process of getting a verifier to check your service is making food safe and registering your service with the Ministry for Primary Industries or local council.
- Changes to your service that you must inform your local council or MPI of after you have registered
Included is the experience of some early childhood services to date.
You are invited to also add questions, comments, share what your experience has been and discuss.
1. Exempt early childhood services
An early childhood service is not required to operate under the national programme 2 if:
The rest of this information or article is for our early childhood service members. Has your service joined us? Log in with your ECE service’s username and password.
Here’s how our membership plans work
- Individual Membership plans can view both Individual member-only articles and our library of Research Journals.
- Early Childhood Service plans can view ALL member articles: Individual, Research Journals and Early Childhood Service articles - along with support and a range of other benefits as outlined on the Join Us page
- Research Journal subscription plans can view our library of Research Journals and the articles in all past and current jounral issues.
Should you not hold a current membership, or should you wish to apply to upgrade from an individual to an ECE Service membership – go to the JOIN US page or contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
