Food business glossary

The label BC requires on meat from a Farmgate Plus licence, where no government inspector checked the animal. That meat may be sold anywhere in BC, but never outside it.

BC’s protected farmland. On ALR land, what you may sell, process or build is limited by the Agricultural Land Commission’s rules — for example how much of a farm store’s stock can come from other farms — on top of your local government’s.

A kitchen Island Health has approved to make food for sale: its plans were approved before it was built, and it holds an operating permit or approval. A home kitchen is not one, unless it is a separate kitchen that went through the same approval.

Your municipality’s permission to do business there, renewed each year in most towns. It is separate from Island Health’s permits and from zoning: you usually need all three.

Heat-processed in a sealed container so that nothing in it can grow at room temperature. A low-acid food in a sealed jar, can or pouch must be commercially sterile to sit on a shelf, and the process has to be set by a thermal-processing expert.

How long an unopened food keeps its quality when stored properly. Packaged food that keeps 90 days or less must show a best-before date.

Island Health’s inspector. Your EHO reviews your plans, inspects before you open and afterwards, and is the person to ask before you change your menu, equipment or layout.

In BC law, any place where food for the public is sold, prepared, packaged, stored, served or transported — a restaurant, a food truck, a bakery, a warehouse. The Food Premises Regulation sets the rules for all of them, with a few exceptions.

The BC liquor licence for a restaurant or café, where food is the main business and alcohol comes with it. A bar, where drinking is the main business, needs a liquor primary licence instead.

Your written account of where food could become unsafe in your kitchen and how you prevent it — cooking and cooling temperatures, for example, and what you do when one is missed. BC requires one from every food premises, alongside a sanitation plan.

BC’s food handler course. The operator of a restaurant, café, food truck or other food service business must hold a FOODSAFE Level 1 certificate or an equivalent.

A tank on a kitchen’s drain line that catches fats, oils and grease before they reach the sewer. Most food businesses on a municipal sewer need one, sized, installed and pumped out under the local sewer rules.

Island Health’s rating of a food premises — low, moderate or high — from its inspections. It decides how often you are inspected.

Food that bacteria can grow in, or produce toxins in, unless it is kept cold or hot — meat, fish, dairy, eggs, cut fruit, most cooked meals. The law calls it “potentially hazardous food”. It must come from an approved kitchen, never a home one.

Zoning’s name for a business run from your home. Each municipality decides whether it is allowed and on what terms — floor space, employees, customer visits, signs — and most require a business licence for it.

A licence shared between municipalities, so a business that moves around — a caterer, for example — doesn’t buy a licence in each one. Greater Victoria has one scheme, the rest of Vancouver Island another, and each sets its own fee and who it covers.

Island Health’s written OK to sell a higher-risk food at a farmers’ market. It confirms each product was made in an approved kitchen, and you carry it at your table.

Food sold only in the municipality where it is made and the ones next to it. Its label may be in English only; everything else still applies.

Food that keeps safely at room temperature because it is too dry, too sugary or too acidic for bacteria to grow — bread, cookies, most jams, hard candy. It is the only kind a home kitchen may make for sale, and only for a farmers’ market.

The person in charge of a farmers’ market. They apply to Island Health for the market, keep the list of vendors and their foods, and check each vendor follows the provincial guideline. Without one, home-made food can’t be sold there.

How BC sorts food trucks and carts. Type A sells prepackaged food, simple snacks or food only handed out; Type B prepares higher-risk food but cooks no raw meat; Type C can cook raw meat. The type decides the permit, the fee and the equipment.

The most people a room or building may hold, worked out from its size and exits under the building code. It limits how many people you can seat, decides some fire-safety requirements, and must be posted once it is over 60.

Island Health’s permit to run a restaurant, café, food truck or other food service business. You get it after the pre-opening inspection, pay its fee each year, and post it where customers can see it.

Two lab measurements that show whether a food keeps safely at room temperature. pH measures acidity (4.6 or below is acidic enough); water activity measures water available to bacteria (0.85 or below is dry enough).

Island Health’s review of your floor plan, equipment and menu before you build or renovate a food premises. Nothing gets built until it is approved, and the pre-opening inspection checks you built what was approved.

A free provincial number for any place that keeps livestock or poultry, so animals can be traced in a disease outbreak. Farm slaughter licences ask for it.

Sealed in its package before it reaches the customer, the way it will be sold. Prepackaged food must carry the federal food label.

An expert in thermal processing who sets — or reviews — the heat process that makes a sealed, low-acid food safe on the shelf. BC has no list of its own; BCCDC points to the Association of Food and Drug Officials’ directory.

CFIA’s licence for making, processing, packing or labelling food that goes to another province, and for importing food. Food made and sold only in BC doesn’t need one.

Your written routine for cleaning and sanitizing, pest control and garbage: what is cleaned, how, how often and with what. BC requires one from every food premises, alongside a food safety plan.

Island Health’s permit to cook or serve food at a fair, festival or other event, or to cook or sample higher-risk food at a market. Apply at least 14 days ahead.

The municipal rules that say what each property may be used for. A café, a bakery or a food processor needs a property zoned for that use before any permit is worth applying for — check it before you sign a lease.