Growers and packers are specifically exempted from meeting the Food Safety Standards except when they conduct some form of processing on farm or sell direct to the public.

However, growers and packers are indirectly implicated in the Standards because a food business such as a wholesaler, processor or retailer is required to take all practicable measures to ensure that it only accepts food from suppliers that is not contaminated. Contamination is further defined as "… a biological substance, chemical agent, foreign matter or other substance that may compromise food safety or suitability."

This flow-on effect is underway. Retailers such as Woolworths/Safeway and Coles are well down the track with over 90 percent of packers and wholesalers who supply direct to their Distribution Centres certified to an acceptable system. Acceptable systems include the Woolworths Vendor Quality Management Standard, SQF 2000cm, SQF 1000cm, Freshcare and HACCP.

Woolworths, Coles and Metcash are also well down the track of having all the Distribution Centres that supply stores certified to a QA system, as well as food safety training and implementation at store level.

The big task now is for those direct suppliers, generally packers and wholesalers, to put Approved Supplier Programs in place for their suppliers. This is where the difficulty over what option is the most suitable becomes obvious.

There are other reasons for implementing some form of QA system into a business apart from legal or customer requirements. Self interest is a great motivator and most businesses that have a system will openly admit to unexpected benefits such as reduced waste, downtime, rejects and repacking. One decent sized problem avoided each year is often more than enough to justify the cost of implementing and maintaining the system.