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Click here to contact us. We can suggest an alternative ingredient to use in your recipe to get an accurate classification.
Try the following steps for a faster experience:
If there are a lot of items in your assessment (ie, approx. 100 items or more) this may cause your assessment to run slow.
Try the following steps for a faster experience:
If your assessment type has separate targets for foods and drinks, you could assess them separately. For example, only enter foods in one assessment, then only enter drinks in another. You will still get an accurate result for each of the food and drink targets.
If you're still experiencing issues with the site, click here to contact us.
This might be because something about the product’s category or criteria has changed since you first assessed it, and it needs to be replaced with an updated version of that item.
We recommend that you copy that assessment, and remove the product. Then click ‘Add product’, and use the ‘Product search’ or ‘Assess new product’ tabs to add the item to your assessment.
If the item was from your saved product list, we recommend you delete it. Click ‘Add product’, then ‘Saved products’ tab. Find the saved product then click ‘Remove’.
Long day care menus are assessed against the Victorian Government'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.
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.
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.
FoodChecker is not designed for Victorians outside school hours care services (OSHC), as the 'schools' classifications are aligned with the Department of Education’s Canteens, Healthy Eating and Other Food Services policy for schools.
However, using the search and assess products function for Victorian schools can still be used as a guide only for OSHC.
Many GREEN and AMBER foods may be appropriate for OSHC, but RED foods should not be provided. Always refer back to the Food and drink guidelines for outside school hours care to determine if a food or drink meets the guidelines for OSHC.
Some products that may be GREEN or AMBER for schools but do not meet the Food and drink guidelines for OSHC include:
You can use FoodChecker to plan and assess healthy canteen menus in line with the following government criteria:
You can also use the product search to find products classified as GREEN, AMBER or RED according to the WA School Food and Drink Criteria (created by the Department of Health Western Australia).
Click the links above to learn more about each criteria.
See also: How to assess a school canteen menu.
Use FoodChecker to assess retail food outlet menus, catering menus, and vending machines according to:
See also: How to assess a retail outlet menu, catering menu 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.
You can use FoodChecker to find out if a product is classified GREEN, AMBER, RED, etc according to the:
There are two ways to find out a product’s classification in FoodChecker:
Learn more: How to assess products.
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 criteria below to confirm if it is classified correctly:
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.
The criteria below are developed and managed by the relevant state governments, 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
South Australia
Queensland
Western Australia
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.)
If you are interested in having your company's foods and drinks listed on FoodChecker, please contact us.
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.