The food inspection and compliance report card from the NSW government has beenreleased and shows a significant improvement from last year.

The report includes details of the inspection activity across the state and it's results.

All local councils now have regular inspections in place compared with only 88 percent in July 2008. In some cases this means that consultants are being used as there may not be  Environmental Health Officers in each council.

"Encouragingly, the report shows a steady and significant increase in compliance rates of food retail premises in NSW, with 73.7 per cent of premises meeting satisfactory compliance of food safety standards during the primary inspection, up from 69 per cent in the previous reporting period," said Steve Whan, NSW Primary Industries Minister .

There are 37 960 high to medium risk businesses in NSW and all were inspected at least once during the year, showing that the requirement for annual inspections has been met. Some businesses had to have two or more inspections to ensure compliance.

"Of those businesses that required a follow-up visit, the vast majority (70.5 per cent) complied with food safety standards upon re-inspection, giving an overall compliance rate after any required re-inspections of 92.2 per cent.This is a good solid result and actually reflects a reduction in the number of businesses requiring re-inspection from 10 per cent in the first year of reporting to 7.8 per cent this year." said Mr Whan. 

The report also details complaints and their sources from 01 July 2009 to 30 June 2010, the following are the complaints received and their percent of the total number received;

- 40% were related to poor hygiene and handling

- 26% were for trade waste, garbage and odour issues

- 19% were about food quality

- 12% were foreign matter issues

- 3% were about incorrect or poor labelling and advertising