FAQs

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• Long day care
• Schools
• Retail food outlets, catering and vending machines
• Product assessments
• General

Long day care

What policy or guidelines will my menu be assessed against?

Long day care menus are assessed against the Healthy Eating Advisory Service’s Menu planning guidelines for long day care.

These guidelines outline criteria for main meals, morning tea, afternoon tea and drinks to plan a menu for children aged 1-5 years old.

Read more about long day care menu assessments.

Can I assess just one recipe on my long day care menu?

FoodChecker looks at all the foods and drinks supplied on the menu for one day or one week.

For advice and suggestions on making individual meals and snacks healthier, visit our website.

Read more about long day care menu assessments.

How do I add a second course to my long day care menu?

If your long day care centre provides a second course after lunch, enter this meal in the 'lunch' section. When asked, select 'no' to the vegetarian meal question.

Schools

What policy or guidelines will my menu be assessed against?

You can use FoodChecker to plan and assess healthy canteen menus in line with the following government criteria:

• School Canteens and Other School Food Services Policy (Vic)
• The Right Bite Food and Drinks Standards (SA)

Click the links above to learn more about each criteria.

See also: How to assess a school canteen menu.

Retail food outlets, catering and vending machines

What policy or guidelines will my foods and drinks be assessed against?

Use FoodChecker to assess retail food outlet menus, catering menus, and vending machines according to:

• Healthy Choices guidelines (Vic), including the Healthy choices policy directive for Victorian public hospitals (Vic)
• A Better Choice – Healthy Food and Drink Supply Strategy for Queensland Health Facilities (QLD)

See also: How to assess a retail outlet menu, catering menu or vending machine.

How do I count the number of items in my retail food outlet menu, drinks fridge or vending machine?

Use this guide (PDF 778KB) to understand how to count food and drink items when doing a retail outlet menu assessment in FoodChecker.

This will ensure the percentages of GREEN, AMBER and RED food and drinks are calculated accurately according to the Healthy Choices guidelines.

Product assessments

How are products classified? What criteria are used?

You can use FoodChecker to find out if a product is classified GREEN, AMBER, RED or BLACK, etc according to the:

• School Canteens and Other School Food Services Policy (Vic)
• Healthy Choices guidelines (Vic)
• The Right Bite Food and Drinks Standards (SA)
• A Better Choice – Healthy Food and Drink Supply Strategy for Queensland Health Facilities (QLD)

There are two ways to find out a product’s classification in FoodChecker:

1. Search the database to find products that have already been classified
2. Assess a product yourself by entering information from the packaging, such as serve size, energy, sugar, sodium, etc.
   

Learn more: How to assess products.

I think a product is classified wrong

We have taken care to ensure that classifications are accurate, however product information can change, and unforeseen errors may occur.

If you believe a classification is incorrect please first check the product’s information against the classification criteria below to confirm if whether or not it is classified correctly:

• School Canteens and Other School Food Services Policy (Vic)
• Healthy Choices guidelines (Vic)
• The Right Bite Food and Drinks Standards (SA)
• A Better Choice – Healthy Food and Drink Supply Strategy for Queensland Health Facilities (QLD)

If you still believe a product classification is incorrect, please report an error here. We will review your report within 3-5 business days and let you know if any action needs to be taken.

I want to provide feedback on the classification criteria

The criteria below are developed and managed by the relevant state governments blow, not by the Healthy Eating Advisory Service nor Nutrition Australia.

If you would like to provide feedback to the relevant government on the criteria, please visit the links below.

Victoria

• School Canteens and Other School Food Services Policy
• Healthy Choices guidelines

South Australia

• The Right Bite Food and Drinks Standards

Queensland

• A Better Choice – Healthy Food and Drink Supply Strategy for Queensland Health Facilities

What if I can't find a product in the database?

If you would like to assess a product that is not in the database, you can classify it by entering some information from the packaging.

From the ‘Search product’ screen, click ‘Assess new product’, then select a category and complete the form. (TIP: If you are logged in, click ‘Save product’ to use it again in future.)

How to assess products.

I’m from a food or beverage company and would like to have my product range included in your database – can you help me?

If you are interested in having your company's foods and drinks listed on FoodChecker, please complete this expression of interest form.

I'm from a food or beverage company and our product/s have been classified. Where did you get the product information from?

Most information about the branded food and drink products in FoodChecker are supplied by an external database, but we also add other products at our discretion.

All product information is either sourced direct from the company or via publicly available information, such as packaging and websites.

If you would like to report an error, or to query a classification, please contact us.

General

Can someone from Nutrition Australia complete my assessment for me?

We hope that this tool will be easy and simple enough for you to complete your assessment yourself. However if you’d prefer us to complete the assessment, please contact Nutrition Australia Vic Division on 03 8341 5800 or email us. Please note this service will attract a fee.