Food Influencers posting food authority nightmares

Our food blog/Instagram lives closely by our food bible – The NSW Food Authority and their list of named and shamed restaurants. The places on this list are almost ingrained in our heads to make sure we never promote them haha! But what surprises us is the amount of Instagram Food Bloggers that promote them and encourage people to go there. The Food Authority post an updated list every Tuesday.

Many restaurants look inviting from the front door but if you saw a dirty kitchen would you keep walking in? Below we are going to list reasons restaurants make their way on this list. You will be probably be quite surprised and there are some big name restaurants on there too.

Photo by Portuguese Gravity on Unsplash


This is a major one that comes up quite a bit. It can range from simply not maintaining the premises to the required standards all the way to not taking measures to prevent pests in the restaurant. There is also a separate warning for maintaining equipment and fixtures to a certain level of cleanliness. I’m not sure how true this is, but I’ve been told by people in the industry, that you have to be really dirty to be given this warning. So don’t think it is just a speck of dust on the counter haha!

2.Temperature Control/Contamination

There are actually restaurants that fail to store their food in temperatures that stop bacterial growth. Or they store it in areas that it can be contaminated by other foods. (eg cooked and raw foods together, chicken and fruit together). This also includes display cabinets not being the correct temperature and needing to have a temperature measuring device on site. Some places don’t even have this, that is what shocked us the most.

3.Hand Washing Facilities

This one is probably the most shocking to us. Failing to have hand washing facilities or easily accessible hand washing on the premises. Gross right? This warning/fine can also include not having hand soup near the hand washing facility as well. This is just getting worse! But it doesn’t stop there, there are even restaurants that don’t have warm running water at the sink.

4.Illegal Ingredients

This one is worrying if you have health problems that are caused by foods/preservatives. There are restaurants that have received warnings about having illegal ingredients in their food. (Eg. Sulphur Dioxide can set off asthema sufferers and was found in one restaurants food). Quite scary when you think about it.

5.No Licence to Operate

There are even places around that are operating and don’t have the required licence to have a food business. How does that even happen? If you are serving food you basically need a licence to inform the food authority you are operating. The only people except from this are NFP fund raising events.

We hope next time you’re walking past a restaurant or being influenced but a food blogger that you check to make sure you’re not getting food poisoning tonight. You can find the NSW Food Authority here:

Have you seen our latest article on your food choices in Darling Square?
