Food premises and notification of food business
What is a food premises?
A food premises means any building or premises or their part in which food intended to be sold or otherwise to be conveyed is manufactured, stored, transported, kept for sale, served or otherwise handled. A food premises may be outdoors or indoors. As mobile food premises are regarded mobile kiosks, mobile sales vehicles, marquees, stalls or other mobile installation. A food premises may also be a virtual premises where food is not handled physically (such as online sales).
What is required of a food premises?
Notification of food business
When you are setting up a food enterprise, you should contact the Food Control Unit early on. A food business operator must give a notification of new food business or a material change in the operations to the competent control authority of the municipality in which the food business is located at the latest four weeks prior to the commencement of operations or material change in them. The processing of this notification is subject to a charge based on rates approved by the City Council of Tampere.
The Food Control Unit must also be notified of a change of operator or suspension or termination of operations.
The smallest operators, including minor sales or serving of food by private individuals or recreational associations, are fully exempt from the notification obligation. These activities may involve occasional food handling (12 times/year) or be low in volume (turnover at most EUR 20,000/year).
Submit a notification of commencement of operations, changes or termination
Notifications of food premises can be submitted using the national ilppa e-service. On ilppa, you can submit the notifications referred to in the Food Act concerning commencement of operations, change of operator, material change in operations, and the termination of operations and closing down of premises. The information is sent digitally from ilppa to the municipality's food control unit for processing. Ilppa is maintained by the Finnish Food Authority. Before submitting a notification, you need a Suomi.fi e-Authorization for the company on whose behalf you wish to submit the notification.